Mr Purdey,
Your first sentence
Entirely agree your "Why the chinook continued more or less straight into the Mull, instead of turning left to follow the coast below the cloud will never be known without doubt."
We
do seem to be gathering consensus!
Strangely, your next sentence that concludes with
this most greivous breach of airmanship ie flying blind over hills
and is totally at odds with the previous one. It is also conjecture (by your own admission) and really, it has limited value in reasoned discussion.
Despite this, I will rise to the bait.
Let us assume that your (and others') conjecture actually is the truth and the crew were negligent in flying IMC, below MSA without carrying out an emergency climb to above safety alt. If this is your position, then you must also accept the RTS limitation on the HC2 not to fly in icing conditions (0 deg isotherm was some way below MSA) would have been a
major contributory factor that may have influenced the crew's decsision making prior to the mull - they would have been most reluctant to climb into icing conditions and may have pushed the limits of VMC...maybe.
That, I suggest, is a rather big hole in any slice of cheese and it almost instantaneously removes the 'absolutely no doubt whatsoever' option for any objective observer and places a heavy burden on those who insisted on operating the HC2 in an operational environment against expert advice. It is arguable that the mice may have eaten the airworthiness slice of cheese altogether!
However, I do not believe your assessment is correct. Sadly, I cannot disprove it but, likewise, neither can you prove it was the case - once again, not meeting the binding requirement to prove 'with absolutely no doubt whatsoever'.
So, if you are siding with Mssrs Day and Wratten, then I feel you have backed a tiring horse. I can understand how they may have made their decision at that time, with only the BOIs report and their limited recent operational experience to go on (Sen Staff Offs are are a long way from the frontline). In 1994/5 the reviewing offs may have produced their verdict with either a heavy heart or dispassionate objectivity (or there may have been undue pressure from above) but since then, it is plain to see that there are far too many holes in too few slices of cheese.
Therefore, I fail to understand people's reluctance to accept the possibility that, with hindsight, Mssrs Day and Wratten may have been wrong in their judgement. We are all only human and their conclusions could be forgiven as they did not have all the pieces of the jigsaw. Neither did they use modern reconstructive processes. If they had, then I believe they would have concluded that they did not know for sure what happened that day.
It is no use saying 'that was then and this is now'.... just because that was accepted practice back then, does not make it acceptable now, especailly in view of recent knowledge. For example, as a nation, the UK has apologised for its actions during the times of the Slave Trade and Germany continues to apologise for the actions of the Nazis during WWII. No-one thinks any less of the present countries' governments. Now, I am not comparing such atrocities with the judgment of the BOI Reviewing Officers, merely highlighting that it does one no harm to accept that the past may need re-appraisal in the light of recent knowledge and also to accept that we may have to view history in a different perspective.
One day, we will all be own our own death-beds, looking back at our acheivements and failures. I think that this episode, one way or another, will feature highly in the minds of those reviewing officers; what they make of it will be the mark of their contributions to society. I believe that Gp capt Crawford has already had the courage to accept that he might have been mistaken. Here's hoping that others may do the same.