I was in the Brittania ( ex Orion) sim doing my OCC with BM when it happened. Never forget the Sim engineer telling us that one of our 73's had gone in, and our feeling when we enquired " off the end/ off the side" ? when he replied " no, on the motorway " . My other vivid memory of the time is of the scum calling themselves press who were waiting at the airport the next day as I left to go home , whilst they scurried around trying to catch the grieving relatives arriving from Belfast. The press had a bit more decorum in these days, but I remembered witnessing stuff that really angered me. I knew both the crew from previous encounters, even prior to BM , and they were both just regular line pilots. Most of us at the time were humble enough to admit " there but for the grace of god" , a notable exception being " Hard Ronny" ( bless his soul) , who reckoned " Ow the F***+ could these Boogers have trashed a brand new aircraft" . . . . . Indeed .