It's like trying to reason with Orwell's sheep.
I hope that the Mull Group is not sticking so rigidly to the theme of airworthiness just because it has invested so much time to it. There is no harm debating alternatives - unless you either just don't want to be embarrassed by the false hope you have given for so long or it is such a useful red herring, an inexhaustible source of material for innocuous debate - in which case who is it who is really pushing the party line? AC or the Group?
As I said earlier, AC is telling it as it is - if you really are genuine about clearing the pilots' names, why not look into any plausible alternatives? Why the blinkers?
Snap out of the groupthink and put your minds to the analysis - there is enough to go on - there are simply too many anomalies to hide from experienced eyes that this was an extraordinary flight if only you would all look.