OK, I'll give another 3 examples from my everyday life as a pilot which demonstrate the blurred lines of responsibility in our business....
Dekker implies system safety is an organizational responsibility. I alluded to this previously with reference to other accidents.
1) With clearance to pushback off stand, my tug team push me back and the tail of the a/c crashes into another "unseen" obstacle. APU catches fire. My responsibility? What am I? An owl?
2) Taxiing my a/c with wingspan 45m along one of airfield XXX's taxiways, the tip crashes into a pier and spills 45T of fuel onto the taxiway. Aerad chart says taxiway is available for use for a/c up to wingspan 60m. My responsibility? (Happened to colleage of mine - albeit with no fuel leakage.)
3) Cleared for intersection departure. Performance manuals suggest TORA/TODA/ASDA is legal but airfield has promulgated incorrect figures and aircraft never gets airborne. My responsibility? (Happened to colleage of mine - figures had been wrong for years. Rotated over piano keys.)
Seems to me, if you want to make the PIC ultimately and exclusively responsible in these circumstances, you've got a job on your hands.
I don't expect to have to have a mirror and tape-measure onboard.
Anyway, associated with ultimate responsibility must be the concept of ultimate discretion, surely? (Although in our industry, it is normally only invoked in an emergency situation....)
And if that is the case, then regardless of what procedures there were for descent, PIC retained the right to deviate from these.
I'd agree, that being down at 1500ft on anything other than the NAV track, he'd be in the s**t. So obviously did the crew...which is why they locked on again...twice.
I can see both sides of the coin but until someone convinces me, as a professional pilot who knows the difference between what the manual(s) say and what really goes on in the commercial world we live in, that it was most unreasonable to do what the crew did, I reserve judgement.