I did not want to bother posting anything further on this thread for a while but there are some points which I feel I need to make seeing the way the obvious is being missed in the discussions at present.
Firstly on meals: whatever the rules for an individual, in this case a key member of a close knit team did not take a meal at the same time as his buddy(s) as well as the met office thing – an opportunity to discuss planning, etc missed – yet another departure from normal practice in this flight. Why?
Secondly the weather: I have made the point so often that, from so many sources, the local weather was most probably typical for that location with the problematic mist being right on the slopes making visual judgment of closing range very difficult; even someone on the ground standing in the mist (the Procurator Fiscal himself, a local who got there soon after the crash) told me that the mist was a layer following the slope with breaks allowing bright sunlight through – the solid cloud started about the level of the crash.
Thirdly there is a tactical consideration that no one has mentioned so far: others have said that in the conditions they had already been negligent by the time of waypoint change – referring to the track on the annotated maps I posted some time ago, they were approaching the coast at an oblique angle and were only a few hundred yards off at that point – and I would agree if they had just been route flying past the Mull and had no reason to approach it so closely; but there is another consideration which is tactical - just about every time I have stood there a helo has come across the sea and turned close to the site to continue up the coast – indeed the lighthouse is an obvious waypoint and apparently is much used – it is also a very isolated spot, an area where hostiles could conceivably be waiting, and so for military pilots used to working in an operational area and thus aware of obvious danger points one would hope that they would have had a think about getting too close to that area with the passengers that they had on board that day. Why would they not have given it a wide berth (SAM range at least) unless thay had a specific reason for approaching it closely and, even in that case, without someone on the ground there telling them that it was secure?
Could that last TX on VHF to ScotMil, so nonchalent and not repeated despite no reply, have been a prearranged call for some other ears that replied on UHF, which it was found the HP had selected for his headset?