meadowbank
No riposte from me. I cannot fault your logic on the rules in existence at that time.
Yes, it is theoretically possible that there was some sort of malfunction affecting "the pilots' ability to control the aircraft, whether temporarily or permanently". But, in all my Chinook experience, I have never heard of another such event. I would say the chances of such an event occurring in this accident as very small but, I have to concede, possible.
The aim of my post, which I guess I didn't make clear, was to challenge the 'stickie' status. In my opinion, this thread should be allowed to stand or fall on its own merit, like other equally worthy threads such as the Nimrod Afghanistan accident.