There is no safety concern here, it's purely bureaucratic and political. Many GA planes are 100% legal and safe to be flown with one pilot. The question here is whether or not this was a commercial (part 91) operation or a charter (part 135) operation. If passengers (friends and family) were not paying, it seems sensible to treat this like any other general aviation (private) flight, but the FAA is notorious for not…
Pilot here. The FAA is overly bureaucratic in some ways, but the safety record of modern commercial air travel is incredible, and that bureaucracy is partly responsible. More to the point, there’s not enough information here to assess whether the FAA is overreacting, but I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt over an anonymous, newly-registered probable-sockpuppet account any day.
Thanks for your response but my tenure on hn is probably the least relevant part of the discussion.