Alice025;
The Russian forum was originally and throughout against pilots blaming. They don't like it :o), from comraderie, when pilots are blamed. Too often here it is written off to "human mistake" when there is fuel lack simply, or some bosses directions.
When he checked in and wrote pilots' fault there was like some stunned silence :o), on the forum, it froze still for a while. They asked "can we quote you on that" and he wrote "yes, quote me" "you'll see, later".
And still they cheered up and whatever he said continued with options, and searching for the reason. Because this is not the "book chapter" yet.
Yes, it is natural for pilots to resist being blamed. Sometimes that is the correct thing to do, sometimes it is not. It may be correct because if just the pilots are blamed but there are other causes, those causes will remain undiscovered and another accident may occur.
If it is only the pilots then that is it. The important task in the investigation is discovering which thing it is - was it the pilots only, or are there other causes? If there are other causes, why were they permitted to occur?
My question is, why would experienced pilots try to land at an airport with such low visibility but which did not seem to have any vertical approach guidance for the aircraft? Why was the aircraft so low so early on the approach?
Normally, a pilot who knew that visibility was very poor would not begin to descend for an approach when he could not see beyond 400m without some form of vertical guidance such as an ILS or a GPS or a PAR (Precision Approach Radar - a ground-controller-guided approach) which would accurately place the aircraft safely above the terrain until the runway was reached.
That is the big question that must somehow be answered. Whether the voice recorder or the data recorders answer this question or creates more questions will be known soon we hope.
PJ2