Gents,
Can we leave the standard pprune petty arguments about which country in Europe is best and get back to the topic in hand?
Ultimately, I think the flight crew have been very harshly treated by the Italian authorities. Which one of you is completely immune to making any sort of human error? The point is, that when they ended up flying a glider, they did their best under the circumstances, with the information they had.
I think the sentence they received could influence a flight crew's decision making in similar situations in the future, in that part of the world. Would you be motivated to try your utmost in a similar scenario, knowing that if you do survive you can expect a long prison sentence if any blame can be attributed to you or your colleagues?