'The flightplan will need to have been filed with CFMU/Eurocontrol, and the airframe and crew will need to have been 'allocated' to the flight by some one/organisation. The crew will have been rostered and known to report at airport X to brief and fly airframe Y to airport Z. To fly the schedule the organisation managing the flying programme will have known and scheduled to have an aircraft at Belfast to fly the route. Therefore there will be an easily identifiable organiser, (to the investigators), of that basic requirement to operate that schedule.'
Doh! I may be a Manxy but you don't need a degree in astrophysics to answer that question - begins in M and ends in 2. The whole operation is run from the hangar here at Ronaldsway. I even know the ops manager, yessir.