John Purdey:
Those circumstances are the facts of the matter
Well you have the advantage on me then because the circumstances of this accident seem to be woefully short of facts IMHO. At one time I'll concede your interpretation was beguiling. A perfectly serviceable and safe aircraft is gratuitously driven in IMC into the side of a hill by two pilots. “Clear case of CFIT, clear case of pilot error, damn it clear case of Gross Negligence”. It never was clear of course, but a convenient finding in the absence of anything more compelling. Now slowly, tortuously, obscurely, that “anything” turns out to be the common denominator as in so many UK military aircraft accidents of late. The aircraft lacked airworthiness, principally because the Regulatory Authority responsible for enforcing the Airworthiness Regulations didn’t, indeed didn’t for some twenty years as a matter of deliberate policy enforced at 4* level downwards on the very people charged with that mandated duty. I do not say that this accident was directly caused by the compromised airworthiness of the aircraft, because I do not know. We do know of at least one hair raising excursion of a Chinook from controlled flight that miraculously landed safely, but if anything similar to that happened here we do not know. To say that we do know without any doubt whatsoever that the pilots were solely responsible for this tragedy seems bizarre and frankly incredible. Given that Messrs W&D would have known full well the airworthiness problems brewing in every UK military air fleet, both then and now, a cynic might find an easy explanation for their arbitrary and extreme findings.