and from the transcript the pilots seem to take a little over five minutes to make the decision to engage.
From the transcript they took 5mins+ to
consider engagement but the decision 'to engage' seems pretty abrupt. To me anyway. There seems obvious doubt by the pilots on the quality of the target for those 5mins - what took the doubt away? It seems a voice on an earpiece rather than what the pilots see with their own eyes - DOUBT. And why was the first reaction from the pilots 'oh sh!t' rather than 'NO WAY!!!'???
The pilot(s) must live with their decision and they were immediately aware of how poor it was. I can't get away from the feeling they knew it was poor...