The sad fact remains that these two pilots have to bear a degree of responsibility for what happend and the deaths of almost ninety people. The company have decided that dimissal is a fair price to pay for the extent of their guilt in this accident.
All of us, as pilots, would hope that they would get away with something less and remain employed but, realistically, we all knew that there was little chance of them keeping their jobs, the same would apply world wide in pretty well all carriers.
Naturally IFALPA are going to put up a spirited fight to help them, that is what pilots pay their union dues for, any lessening of the sentence will be welcome too, not just by these two unfortunates but by everyone who could one day find themselves in a similar position and will be reperesented by IFALPA.
As has been mentioned on another thread also, it is quite likely that the insurance underwriters would expect nothing less prior to the next renewal, how would one explain it away if one of the two had a bad day when their luck ran out and was involved in another serious incident?