how right you are. btw, a similar thing happened to a friend of mine in high school. his father was a real airline pilot, so by 15 or so this guy had his own pilots license. so what did he do? he goes to the airport and steals a plane, no kidding. it was a cessna however. police copters chased him for about an hour, he just kept circling our city. i would post his name, but i think all should be forgiven a transgression or two in the right circumstances. btw, all of us in the high school thought he was the biggest dork until he did this silly thing.
There is a transcript of an American airline crash in South America that is available on the internet. On the cockpit recorder they are discussing the fact that neither has a clue as to where they. It is night and then they violate a basic rule, they did not climb to MEA, flew it into a mountain.
Both had many thousands of hours.
Did he lose his license?