There is a version of this job where you shine a torch through the hatch, write “limited access”, and move on. It is faster, it is cleaner, and it is where most of the claims against inspectors come from.
Everything structural that goes wrong in a Hudson Valley house goes wrong down there first. Sill beams sitting on damp masonry. Joist ends rotting where a porch was added without flashing. Powder post beetle. A sump that has not run in six years because the float seized.
Three houses
A Rhinebeck colonial last spring: sill beam gone soft along eleven feet of the north wall, invisible from the hatch, obvious from four feet in. An 1890s farmhouse in Saugerties: two joists cut through for a bathroom drain in the nineties and never headed off. A raised ranch in Highland where the vapour barrier had been laid shiny side down and the whole cavity was running at 78% humidity.
None of those show from the hatch. All three changed what the house was worth.
When I will not go in
Standing water, live wiring in the water, evident animal occupation, or less than about eighteen inches of clearance. In those cases the report says not inspected, why, and what I would want done before someone does go in. That is a finding too.