Apologies for being irrelevant to this page's discussion but to clarify:
POB - Passengers on Board
SOB - Souls On Board
It is a clear and necessary distinction for Operations.
Are you sure about that? For years I've been passing POB figures as meaning persons on board i.e. the same as we previously called souls on board. It's been that way in my last two airlines which doesn't necessarily make it correct but I've never heard of passing a POB figure that doesn't include the crew.
EDIT: I've just checked the UK CAA definition of POB and it is "(Total) Persons on Board". I know this isn't that relevant to what caused this crash but it's come up several times in this thread so hopefully this answers the question.