... and then what, climb to an altitude (let's call it an "immediate MSA") and continue on task well below your en-route MSA because the aircraft wasn't cleared for icing? One would hope not. The only option after an abort would have been to 180 and go home. I'm not saying this should have overridden their decision making but it certainly would have been a consideration. Imagine a possible conversation.
They hit a hill, as have many pilots. I'll ask it again - can anyone explain why this particular accident warranted a Gross Negligence when many others with more compelling evidence didn't? I have yet to hear an explanation on that one.
As an aside, I shared a CH47 with Rick some years earlier as we crawled up the side of an arbitrary hill in the Falklands. We had dropped a signals team on top to do some maintenance on the rebro and whilst we were away on other tasks the cloud lowered covering the hill. Sometime later we returned and the sqn boss decided to hover taxy up the side of the hill into the cloud in order to pick up the rebro team. In no uncertain terms, Rick told the Boss that he was barking mad and that he had every intention of making his own way on to the Tristar home. He convinced the Boss that he should either land on waiting for the signallers to walk down the mountain or just leave them behind with their 2 days of rations. That is the way SH worked.