SASless
I certainly would not have the time to even locate FAR Part 135, let alone take a wander through it.
But you said it: "The pilot is the final authority on the safe operation of the aircraft without a doubt".
It is reasonable for a company to expect its individual employees, pilots included, to take primary responsibility for the decisions they are supposed to, and do, make.
The commercial world is becoming increasingly burdened by a Health and Safety authority attitude that presumes the organisation is always automatically and primarily to blame rather individual employees, even when they have clearly acted outside policy and common sense. This is contributing to the development of an attitude of blaming others (ie the company) rather than ourselves when mistakes are made.
Running a successful business is hard enough - as the aviation world proves - without added unreasonable burden. You can bet the operator in this instance will incur a huge workload as a result of the accident, regardless of where the main responsibility is ultimately deemed to rest. And that is before the costs of aircraft and ground damage, reputation, loss of business etc are taken into account.
Agreed we do not know the full circumstances. Maybe the pilot was unreasonably pressured by ops to go. But then maybe he wasn't.