Originally Posted by
Philoctetes
Seems they intended to as the pitot heat was also off to save battery power.
The fact that the Pitot Heat is off is irrelevant. Some people fly around with it off when clearly outside icing conditions, which obviously they were at the time.
If, as you sugggest,they intended to continue, KNOWING they had a failure, then surely they would have turned off the Strobes, ADF, DME, VORs and other radios? All these appear to be on.