Back in my early days as an NFO I had the "opportunity" to fly with the squadron Operations Officer who just happened to have a "Special IFR" ticket. One day he elected to use it so that we could take off way below minimums and fly our scheduled mission. It wasn't critical, if we didn't fly it the powers that be would simply have rescheduled. But he had his own schedule and didn't want to extend so we took off in near zero visibility -- really stupid.

Tower did not give us a normal take-off clearance; it was more along the lines of "your on your own", "crash trucks are standing by". If you have any problems right after take-off where are you going to land? The field behind you is below minimums. Really bad judgment IMO. End of story, uneventful flight, field was clear and sunny when we returned later in the day. Never flew with him again.

The two gents in the crash above got off lucky, they should be dead. At least now with that 1979 Piper (Arrow?) in pieces, he won't be able to do it again. Harsh lesson.