Just listened to the CVR. The "news" stories are total crap. I can't comment on what the pilots coulda and shoulda done to achieve a better outcome but the Captain and FO appear to have been trying to do their jobs given the extreme circumstances. Isn't the airline to blame for not rostering crews that can communicate effectively with pax? The sentence seems unduly harsh!
This is probably a dumb question....but is there a pilots' association that ever gets involved in trying to bring public attention to something that seems to be an obvious injustice?