"So they screwed up. There but for the grace of God go we!!! If it wasn't for the crap hours and patterns we fly and the constant abuse that's dished out these sort of things probably would not happen."
Sorry, but Scandinavian Airlines did the same in PVG 2005. They had a 48 hour rest before the flight and by that time they had a very easy life on that fleet.
"This isn't the last time this sort of thing is going to happen either, when you're flying with only TWO pilots from the likes of CPT at night almost 10hrs and all the other long flights with inadequate crew numbers and no crew rest what do you expect?"
Same again, the SAS crew were augmented by one FO. It didn't help them.
I don't know the procedures for checking the FMC inputs in EK but clearly they missed out on that one (if FMC inputs were the problem).
SAS crew was back in duty in a couple of weeks. Although they accepted the blame (as one said: we screwed up) the company never took it out on them.
Good luck to the guys involved. I can only imagine the stress they and their families will feel now.