Very seldom, if ever, are aircraft accidents caused by a single, isolated event. They are invariably the result of a chain of events that conspire to eventually cause the accident. Flight Safety initiatives and Airline Operations are intended to leverage the intellectual capital and experience acquired through others misfortunes over the years, by identifying the events or sequences that ultimately lead to accidents. SOP's, Checklists, Airfield Markings, Currency, Rest Periods, Maintenance are some of the weapons we have in our armory to prevent accidents, but being human allows us to circumvent those preventative measures. Sadly, this accident will prove to be no different to many others in that the "chain" could have been broken at a number of points, but it wasn't, and the accident occurred.
Understanding “how” the accident occurred now seems to have been largely answered, and this is crucial in ensuring that flight crews are made aware of the circumstances pertinent to this event in the shortest possible time, to avoid any repetition of those circumstances. Although it is clearly distressing, as some on this board have indicated, it is an essential part of the initial investigation to establish how the accident occurred in the shortest possible time. Grieving and condolences do not prevent further accidents, knowledge and awareness do.
Having determined the “how”, it now falls to the authorities to fully determine the "why". This is where every aspect and failure that led to the causal chain will be identified and not surprisingly, this takes a great deal of time and effort. It will be some time before the exact sequence of events is known, and some may never come to light. The point of all this is to reiterate that attempting to take off on Runway 26 was just the final act, in an as yet unknown sequence of events.
This is where the great media circus stumbles. In this age of instant gratification and instant answers, they simply do not have the mental capacity to understand a formal process that might take a year or two to complete. That is why they speculate and create their own facts around these cases. Long drawn out inquiries do not sell papers or generate viewing figures, but thankfully the media tire easily and will soon be distracted by something else, leaving the rest of us to get on without them.
The passengers and crew of Flight 5191 deserve our thoughts and prayers, but future passengers and crew equally deserve a full understanding of what went wrong and how to avoid similar events in future.