2. No mayday or other communication was given regarding a possible ditching ergo ditching was unintentional ergo CFIT
3. It follows from 2. that no exceptional skill was necessary in the fortuitous outcome
4. On the face of apparent evidence the aircraft was not carrying the necessary fuel as mandated by my reading of the regs.
With respect Brian Abraham - there's a logical disconnect between the two assertions you make in 2 & 4. If indeed it was a CFIT as you claim to know, how can you purport to know how much fuel was carried with respect to the regulations? The logical consequence of your assertion that it was a CFIT, ie. they are still maneuvering, should be that they were STILL busy attempting approaches into Norfolk, possibly because they maintained an expectation that the weather might improve or, - in fact even STILL had NWWW as an alternate up their sleeve. The last option is highly unlikely I know, but as pilots we tend to be too quick to wash our hands off one of our colleagues after they've achieved that undesirable disconnect between number of Takeoffs and number of landing in our logbook. I realise this is a rumour network but all of the self pronounced aviation experts posting here, helps set a public perception of the nature of character, skill and experience (and in this case - bugger me dead, even the LOOKS) of the aviator in question. For us to hang anyone out to dry before KNOWING the facts involved are as despicable as the press desire to make heroes out of anyone of us after we have done nothing but what would be expected of us in a difficult situation. I have done some flying out to Norfolk myself and echo the sentimens regarding the bravery of the First Response team launching a boat across the reef at night time. Without a shadow of a doubt - THEY are the true heroes in this case and I shall rescind my Aussie citizenship unless they are receiving a well-deserved medal and honour on next Australia day.
I reckon it is time for a lot of posters on this forum to take a deep breath and let the REAL experts get on with their investigations into the chain of causation that led to the situation where 6 people managed to swim away from the aircraft that night.
Cheers all