But Beagle, we can prove that they didn't have breakfast in the mess and that they would have been outside crew duty hours sometime after the crash.
Being less flippant, there are two discussion points running here. On the one hand there is Caz's perfectly valid stance on crew duty, breakfast etc. However, I'm struggling to see the
direct relevance these lines of discussion have with the aircraft hitting the Mull. It may contribute towards painting a picture of flagrant disregard of rules but all this does is offer doubt as to the professionalism of the crew.
Looking at the whole airworthiness issue, there is stronger evidence but again it is difficult to apportion
direct relevance to the crash. The FADEC issue brings an element of doubt, nothing more.
So we have two lines of thought that both offer doubt; one doubting the professionalism of the crew, the other doubting the airworthiness of the aircraft. Either way, each argument brings doubt to the other hypothesis.
This leaves us with the VFR/IFR/VMC/IMC argument. There is little doubt that the aircraft was IMC
when it hit the Mull, the question is when did it enter IMC? Furthermore, the argument about safety altitude is disingenuous. If they had entered IMC and then climbed to the 'immediate' SA then they would have been safe. But, from this point onwards they could not have completed the task as this would have required a further climb the the en-route SA - above the icing level and outside of the aircraft's RTS. So, why didn't they climb to SA? I don't know but John Day tells us he does.
