JJ83, so in addition to reiterating the investigation’s conclusions (and similarly failing to provide any explanation / solution), you accuse the crew of being ‘stupid’.
The purpose of investigating such incidents is “…. the prevention of accidents and incidents” (ICAO Annex 13).
The report identifies preventative measures in the recommendations. Changing the Tower lighting addresses the obvious hazard; yet in acknowledging this, it might be construed that the crew’s decision based on what they saw was correct.
However, the apparent failure to following the VOR procedure or the operational SOP appears to be grouped in the recommendation to review CRM training. No evidence was presented relating to poor training; indeed the crew’s training was assessed as being satisfactory and met all regulatory requirements. If the investigation considered that the standard of CRM was insufficient, either a higher regulatory standard might be justified, or an explanation of why the crew did not exhibit their assessed standard on the day of the incident should have been given.
Lest I should be accused of being overcritical of the investigation, the Irish AAIU should be congratulated on addressing the difficult area of human factors, which is often avoided in such investigations.
IMHO a more considered view of the crew’s performance might come from a speculative review of the crew’s behavior including the possibility (probability) that the errors identified in hindsight (misidentification, violating SOPs) were to be expected in the situation and were within the limits of human performance.
Using James Reason’s view of accidents – latent factors and an unsafe act, the latent factor of the lighting was identified together with the act - human nature – believing what is seen; but for the procedural factors, only the unsafe act was mentioned.