Let me remind you that sabotage or other hostile action was confidently dismissed by the authorities rather quickly after the crash;
then we had the damning of the pilots with a judgment that implied to the world that there was absolutely no doubt whatsoever that it was a case of pilot error;
remember that throughouty the early inquiries there were suggestions that the crew were incompatible, that they were in a hurry, that they were listening to a pop station, etc, etc.
From what you all know and have campaigned to correct, these pilots were not incompetent or cavalier and there has not been anything to show that they had been to support the above official view; what this official view did do was to deflect public concerns regarding other causes of the crash and perhaps defuse possible public unrest over the loss of the security team – with hindsight, is there any other plausible reason for that unjust decision to have been made and so strongly maintained?.
The Mull group's strategy to rectify the (unjust) blame on the pilots seems to be restricted to casting doubt over the airworthiness of the aircraft: despite its track record of being a reliable, invaluable workhorse and suggesting that partway through a simple flight some transient control issue (for which there is no evidence whatsoever) just happened to occur when they were near an obvious spot for a bushwacking of some sort and to which they seemingly intentionally closely approached; further, no effort has been made to seriously address why they had instruments set for a landing at a known landing site for such aircraft nor why they were using an exercise callsign for the flight, why the radio call to Scotmil was unanswered (perhaps a prearranged call for someone else to receive?), etc, etc.
The a/c had approached closer than was wise or necessary in the prevailing conditions for a ferry flight just passing by the Mull; they had ditched the waypoint that should have been of use to them (perhaps this was just a way of telling the world that they were using something else just in case?), turned right (into the higher ground) and started to slow down (significant reduction in airspeed as per Boeing's analysis); their path from the point of waypoint change to the crash site was the optimum approach heading for a known site (for which waypoint A would have been an obvious inner marker) and which was found set on the HP's course selector of his HSI; and the HP's baro alt was set for QFE at for it's elevation (a RADALT alarm was set at minimum as per an immediate landing in marginal conditions).
All that is known about this crash is explained by them deliberately approaching a known landing site with the intention to either land or pass closely (for whatever reason) but someone or something that was giving them range and bearing who/which should have been on the landing site but was actually ½ a mile or so up the hill such that they had turned right a bit early and misjudged their closing range in conditions which prevented reasonable visual judgment that could have contradicted their (mis)guidance.
Given who was on board, the possibility of any such exercise being wilfully misused should have been considered – they were opposed to the peace process.that has been foisted upon the whole island of Ireland and they represented a significant obstacle to its implementation. I do not hold any hope for the pilots' names to be cleared in the immediate future while there is considerable, growing anger about the peace process's effects on the communities concerned – people would like to know how the possibility of sabotage was so summarily dismissed when all these years later the cause of this crash is still wide open.