FP thank you for the link to the legal article. I contacted the Isleworth court to get a copy of records of the Stewart case about 6 years ago but was told they simply weren't kept.
FWIW my own feeling is that the part of the reason for the prosecution decision WAS because of potential harm. P357 of that Journal of Air Law refers to a comparison with then EL AL 1992 Amsterdam accident in which the death toll was 42, of whom 39 were on the ground.
In the NO event there was only an secretive and unpublished internal enquiry which states that "
During a go around, [the aircraft] descended to 75 feet radio altitude, in the vicinity of an airport hotel and other buildings which rose to 70 feet." There is very little substance to it compared to what an AAIB investigation would have contained. We can legitimately surmise that would have been the case because of two other AAIB reports on serious incidents on the same fleet with some common factors - getting extremely close to the ground in the wrong place on an approach. These resulted in recommendations for procedural changes which were not implemented. Senior management noted subsequently that an AAIB enquiry into the November Oscaar incodentv could have been highly problematic for the airline because of this.
While the Air Law article notes in its comparison nis that the EL AL B747 was a freighter, but NO was full of passengers, it does not point out that the hotel was part of a large complex and almost always very occupied. The ground death toll in Amsterdam was actually relatively low (39 rather than the original estimate of about 200) because the aircraft hit the ground at the intersection between two apartment blocks, while the NO wreckage path would have possibly taken out not only the line of hotels but the fire station and police station RFF facilities, and impacted or closed the major access routes to the airport (M4 spur and A4 highways in the morning rush hour), rendering rescue difficult and possibly closing the UK's principal airport for an indefinite period. So the potential death toll was at least an order of magnitude larger. My guess is that the "potential" was for a global worst ever transport catastrophe, with loss of life on the scale of the sinking of the Titanic, and uncountable economic impact on the country.
G-AWNO flight path and potential impact area
My gut feeling is that people in AAIB and the CAA must have been aware of how serious this event could have been. AAIB had no resources available to investigate what was after all simply a bad weather go-around with no injuries or damage, when they had their hands more than full with the PanAm Lockerby disaster and the BMA Kegworth accident.
On the other hand fact that the potential was so serious, possible common factors with previous events that had not been addressed, and the inadequacy of the airline's internal responses (exacerbated by the attitudes of the pilot concened, the union reps and the management at the time) meant that SOMETHING had to be said by the aviation establishment, as represented by the CAA. The end result was that the "SOMETHING that had to be done" meant that for lack of any more significant acceptance of responsibility, Glen Stewart ended up in the dock as the fall guy, paying eventually with his life for many other inadequacies, in the airline, the regulator, and the legal system.
PS: none of this is really on the same topic as the original thread; Glen Stewart quietly killed only himself, and did no harm to any of his passengers.