"Why not wait for the ATSB report and then judge whether it was a reasonable string of errors for the crew to make, whether they spotted any of the clues to their predicament and what other factors are involved. Maybe it wasn't the big bad airline that was at fault, maybe they contributed but blind defence of the crew is equally silly particularly based on a tabloid newspaper article."
But that is just the point. The company sacked the pilots before a full investigation, and any acknowledgement that there might be underlying root causes. Contemporary safety management recognises the interelatedness of the human-machine-environment interface, the importance of culture and unavoidability of human error. There may be inmportant lessons to learn regarding the nature of this work involving multiple time-zones, inability to sleep and fatigue. So the wrong decisions regarding fitness to fly may have already stemmed from fatigue.
Clearly, the company has already made up its mind. That says to me a company with a bad safety culture. I'm very impressed with the commentary from older pilots on this forum regarding flying ability and personal responsibility, but refusal to accept the complex implications of fatigue states is antiquated, as is the notion that an organisation is never implicitly responsible for its employee's errors.