The weather again a factor we can have reasonable certainty about.
You can go up there yourself and get familiar with the local weather phenomena on the Mull at this time of year (much of what passes as summer) and then consider eye witness reports that were in a position to know (as opposed to people standing in the cloud).
Why not take a trip up there for the anniversary?
First check the long range weather forecast to make sure you are going to experience the common southerly wind on the Mull.
Visit the crash site in the morning while it is clear: see the green triangle landing area (if you walk to the edge with your GPS you can see just how close in way point A was);
notice that a moderate turn to the north gives a wide path between the masts and the high ground in case of wave off.
Get a bunch of you together and charter a boat (fishing trip like) for the afternoon until, say, 7pm have a GPS with you or make sure the boat has a nice daylight viewing radar that you can gather around so you can have a little competition for judging how far you are off the coast at. say, 1, ½, and Ό miles off.
Hang around the position where the way point was changed in the SuperTANS get a feel for how close in it was.
Now wait for the day to cool down and have your cameras ready as the afternoon goes to early evening, you should start to notice a fine haze developing on the lower slopes running up along the slope you can still see the ground but the effect is subtle small detail and texture is lost such that even in this state it becomes hard to judge distance accurately unless you can see a familiar object (eg light house) clearly.
As time goes by, the layer of ground hugging mist starts lower and thickens further up the slope until it merges with the developing orographic cloud.
Note that in your boat you are in the clear even very close in but keep chugging back to the position of way point change keep up the range guessing game.
On a typical summer evening with a southerly blowing this is a very common local condition but how do we know this was as it was at the time of the crash with reasonable certainty? - who were the witnesses?
WITNESSES:
The Procurator Fiscal was the man who called the FAI; he is a local and attended the crash site as soon as was possible and spent much time there that evening with a critical eye; he described to me that there were sufficient gaps in the mist, when you walked just below the crash site so that you were out of the solid orographic cloud, that bright sunlight got through and you could see that the mist was a layer following the slope; he asked that the attending helicopter, when it was landing at the crash site, land further down as it was disturbing evidence with its wash.
There were two helicopters I know of that were operating on and around the Mull for much of that day: one pilot described the mist to me as that it was very much on the land as opposed to out at sea at all when on the shoreline, it was clear for miles out to sea but clag on the land; the other pilot of interest, who flew the attending Sea King, was not called to the BOI.
There were several fishing vessels in the area of interest the Chief Inspector, a local, who was in charge of the crash site told me that it was often the case and that most of them were probably Irish they would have had local knowledge of the usual conditions and should have been able to comment on the conditions on that particular day; as far as I know, none were asked but much has been made of the account of the amateur yachtsman who had to sail around this little fleet he described it as being clear up to the coast and up to the base of the light house wall.
.
So I am saying that if you are at the position of way point change, in the conditions that seem with reasonable certainty to have been prevailing that day, whether at sea level in your boat or at say 500ft (but below the base of the orographic cloud) you would be in the clear.
However, it would be very difficult to judge your range off the coast visually, especially approaching at speed.
This bit should be of relevance to what JP has been on about:
However close in they were at the position of way point change (and this was very close), they would not have been breaking VFR as nothing would have been coming out of the mist, it being right on the landmass on the see and be seen principal, whatever their speed, it was clear in all directions apart from that of the landmass and no other a/c would have been coming from that direction also for completion, they could legitimately be actually under the orographic cloud (about 800ft at the time) as nothing should have been descending through it.
I hope that the perspective I have presented here will stop the slur that pilots of their calibre would have been bumbling about in IMC so close to the landmass.
.
Going back to the boat trip at about 6pm at the position of way point change look towards the coast and do the range game imagine if your GPS or Radar or some other device was telling you that you were ½ mile further out than you were even standing in the open on the deck at slow speed with all the time in the world, would you be able to disagree confidently with that? - imagine at 140ish kts looking through perspex concentrating on an instrument.
But you would know that you were close such that with any kind of emergency you would surely do anything to avoid heading that way at speed or without climbing urgently how many controls would have to have jambed to have prevented emergency evasive action of some kind? - and that let them initiate a suitable emergency manoeuvre at the last moment before impact presumably as they entered the mist?
At the position of way point change they turned right (onto 035 mag).
Boeing's analysis (dist/time calcs) had it that they very much continued straight in to the crash area after this turn and this was reinforced by the AAIB report on the accuracy of the Doppler part of the navigation system (they had not been weaving about as the accuracy of the Doppler as determined was dependent upon a steady heading).
I have made the case in previous posts that this turn was deliberate (HP's HSI setting).
Rather than powering up to get over the low hill that is the Mull, they had started to slow down (Boeing airspeed down 20ish but masked by increase in tail wind component as they crossed the shoreline) and the matched state of the engines' powers suggests that this was a controlled state.
With the HP's baro alt set for landing at the elevation of that green triangle landing area that way point A was the obvious inner marker for and that a RADALT warning was at min consistent with an imminent landing in marginal conditions and that the landing area had been used before by Chinooks (the Procurator Fiscal thought they must have been going to land there Flt Lt Tapper had done so himself on previous occassions) it would be reasonably to contemplate that they had an intention to land or closely pass there for whatever reason.
.
However, back to standing on that boat at the position of way point change you must ask yourselves the question would I turn here at their speed towards that mess without some accurate point reference? - I think not.
They had discarded way point A from the SuperTANS at this position it was still ahead and would have been invaluable so what the hell were they referring to?
.
Doing this trip and exercise for yourselves would not take much time nor money and you would get a feel for the circumstances that cannot be got by reading at the very least, it is a nice area to visit and you can pay your respects at the memorial.
Compare this suggested boat exercise with the flight arranged for those involved in one of the inquiries when the weather was clear which would have been more relevant?
If you are rich you could also do this exercise in a light a/c in the same conditions as I have described as prevalent at the time don't forget a camera for our benefit!