it was obvious that the pilot was well off course when above FL110 – in very good radar coverage. That is when the pilot could have been told that he was heading well away from the GPS approach, and that is when there is a chance that the accident could have been prevented – it is as simple as that.
Really? Could it have been prevented if the radio altimeter, which was fitted to this aircraft, had not been disabled by the pilot?
Whilst ATC monitoring of IFR tracks forms part of the system's defences, surely the final defence layer in the prevention of a CFIT should lie in the use of airborne technologies. In this case those technologies were knowingly disabled and so this final defence was breeched and the accident was allowed to occur. To pin-point the ATC's role in this accident as the 'make or break' point is misleading and is in direct conflict with the systemic approach to accident causation.