[Ol' Dan Tucker]

I may be misunderstanding what that means because there could be different levels of “certified”, but I think he was IFR rated. Still...he was flying VFR in IFR wx.

He was IFR-rated, but the company he worked for was forbidden from operating commercial IFR flights. This is not unusual for this area given that the weather in SoCal is mostly clear. IFR commercial flight insurance is prohibitively expensive, which is why helo charters in SoCal operate VFR-only.

[moovova]

Interesting. I’d read the company was VFR flight only, but didn’t know the insurance angle. Thanks.