To suggest that duress may have been a factor is to miss, completely, the manner in which the pilot(s) was/were thinking.
I've said my piece here, and shall not do so again. I'm sorry to see the cognoscenti here so keen to blame an inexperienced and arguably impressionable pilot, with considerable favour at stake, and motivated by the advice and clear intent of someone he regarded as 'superior', for his own demise, when that demise, in the circumstances, was so far outside his own making.
Don't forget, if we simply blame accidents on 'pilot error' (apparently bose's favourite phrase at the moment, though one with which I have significant argument on several levels), they will keep happening, again and again.
With luck, those of us who deal in the real world where human behaviour interfaces with flight operations, might bypass this fatalist approach and prevent the odd accident, perhaps even in the non-professional flying world.