Heathcliff, I have been one of those that have been critical of the conduct of the flight so I suspect that your comment is made (at least partially) at me.
You are probably correct that there are two points here - one is expressing ire and the other is learning to prevent reoccurrence. As far as flight safety is concerned there have been some excellent points raised as to where it all went wrong however it appears that there are no new lessons to be learnt here so the real question, which remains unanswered is - why did it all go so badly wrong? By this I mean why were the SOP's so poor and why weren't those that were there not adhered to? Why did Dr SM chose to push on and on and on, ignoring all wisdom and common sense even once the aircraft has almost impacted the ground? I guess the only person who can really answer this question is Dr SM but he has chosen not to engage and help us with this bar telling us to be cautious without explaining why he himself wasn't.
The other point is expressing ire. When incidents like this occur (thankfully they are rare), personally I am both relieved that the result was not far worse but frustrated (and yes probably angry) that behaviour like this is tolerated within our industry. I am not without fault and I have done things which, with the benefit of hindsight, I would do differently, but for me - this lack of adherence to any kind established procedures is reckless and it damages the reputation of the whole industry. It is akin to the driver that cuts you up on the motorway doing 120mph - I believe it to be unnecessary and dangerous so I don't shed a tear when such drivers are banned but I do get frustrated if they are caught but not punished.
To put this is perspective, have a read of this article.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...elicopter.html
Personally I believe that the gentlemen concerned (Mr Voice) was reckless and it was good that some kind of punitive action followed. I assume that DrSM also felt that the action was reckless as I would imagine it would have been impossible to secure a conviction without a statement from him as the pilot. So I wonder what the view from fellow readers is with regards to whether there is any comparison (in terms of endangering the helicopter) with the way Mr Voice acted when he chose to shine his torch and the way that Dr SM acted when he chose to operate the helicopter in the way that he did?