the pilot made a huge mistake
This is miles beyond a simple mistake.
Agreed.
we should not try to cover it up with the fatigue excuse again
Agreed, we should not "cover it up". But refusing to accept that fatigue could have played a part is a "cover up" on its own!! Fatigue is
not an "excuse", if it is a factor it is a
reason.
Refusing to accept that fatigue is a possible cause of bad mistakes will simply result in these sort of bad mistakes repeating themselves over and over again.
That pilot did not want to make that bad mistake. So what
caused that bad mistake.
Have any of you sat in the right seat of a turbo-prop training a new captain towards the end of a run of tiring (early!) duties? Both of you are in seats that are unfamiliar to you. That had been a very short sector so a very high workload. Add fatigue onto that 'pile' of problems and you run the risk of exactly this sort of disaster. To deny that fatigue can be a very significant factor is a refusal to look at reality.
This report has not sufficiently considered this problem.
What the brain can do during high stress.
What a
fatigued brain can do during high stress.