Gwyn,
You asked for some facts ( I hear what you say LP but there are too many false statements being made on this and it is not fair to the pilot in question)
I have today seen a three page document which is an independently produced factual summary of all the witness statements taken.
This annihilates the company position that there is a case to answer but (as the company is currently pulling furiously on all the rope they are being given to hang themselves) its distribution is being delayed so they can take some more.
In summary though the report provides evidence that
1- This Captain ,in seven different situations, took action to expedite proceedings on the day
2-The central pillar of the company case rests on a rule referred to by two managers. Unfortunately for them they have not checked their facts and are out of date. The current company procedure was correctly followed by the Captain , is documented in the company procedure manual and has been verified previously in writing by another company manager. The position advocated by these two managers is not documented anywhere
3- Due ,in part,to a totally missleading report from an Operations Controller the investigating officer has (i)assumed incorrect slot times and (ii) actually been duped into believing there was a critically timed slot (when in fact it never existed).
4-Regarding your hypothetical slot situation, the pax were all off loaded in BLQ (after she had made up time on the MAN - BLQ sector) with only 10 mins left before she went into discretion.
In terms of an "accident chain of events" most of the normal links were present
The skipper was tired ,hungry (as both flight deck had only been given one vegy sandwich to share between them) and understandably wound up by the unprofessional venom of the Operations Controller ; the F/O was also tired , hungry and inexperienced on type. The wx at departure and destination was bad / deteriorating and they were on the final sector of a maximum duty four sector day.
BACX's other major gripe (the decision not to load fuel in BLQ) was taken at destination when it was clear that the aircraft could not return before going into discretion. As such it had no impact on the ability of the aircraft to complete a 10 min turn around and avoid discretion.