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I'm baffled that he was found not guilty. In the absence of any other reason for the failure, he is at fault. There's a simple checklist to show whether or not it's safe to begin a particular move or routine, and he failed to follow it. If I did the same while trying to practice a stall in a Cessna, crashed and killed someone, I'd be 100% at fault for not doing the right thing. Just because he's that highly trained doesn't absolve him, it makes it worse.
NurseHolliday-
I agree with a lot of this. I think if he can't prove he blacked out or whatever, the assumption has to be that he was at fault. His expertise and training does not absolve him, but it highlights how odd it is for him to make these seemingly obvious mistakes.
In terms of liability, there is still the question that if someone has a heart attack, out of nowhere, while driving down the motorway and kills someone, are they to blame? Or is it just an accident? In this scenario he's trying to claim the latter as his defence, but can't prove he had the heart attack.
In your stall practice comparison, it would be similar if, after crashing you claimed not to remember anything, and it to become apparent that rather than starting the manourve at say 5000 feet, you inexplicably did it at 1000. Your argument may be that you must have had some kind of cognitive failure as to do that on purpose would be crazy.
Scrabble
I'm not sure the comparison to driver on cyclist incidents is particularly apt. The main difference being that the only person he was likely to kill by this dangerous flying was himself. Tragically, he managed to kill 11 people and miraculously not himself.
From what I've read, it appears he started the manourve from such a poor altitude and speed it was almost impossible for it to succeed. This seems particularly odd because he is without doubt an experienced and highly trained aerobatic pilot.
His explanation is that it seems inconceivable that he would have done that were his mind functioning properly, and the jury have decided that they cannot say that beyond reasonable doubt, he is incorrect in that argument.
Its a crazy case. I certainly expected him to be found guilty, but Ive also been baffled at how it happened, if there was no mechanical failure. People this experienced tend not to just crash.