To Barbies boyfriend - You appear to miss the point.The AVMs concluded it was gross negligence without any real evidence to support it and ignoring their only policy on the standard of evidence. If this was applied in criminal cases and people went to jail for say, theft on the basis that they might have stolen it as we have no other explanation then rightly it would not be acceptable.
In this case, there were other factors acknowledged in the report but due to politics I suspect, a seriously flawed and to be honest, an incompetent judgement was made.
I have worked as both a criminal and air safety investigator and the original report published with the gross negligence conclusion was in my opinion a betrayal of the system, facts and crew. The effects of the AVM's personal views on the families of the crew were never considered - unprofessional to say the least.
it is my experience that accidents of this type are not caused by gross negligence but are the result of a chain of events- The Reason's cheese model. If human input contributed to the end result how can you quantify it?
The point you make about flight data recording - it would have been extremely useful but it is not available so speculating about what it might have shown is not useful and is indicative of the BOI methodology of apportioning blame rather than seeking cause. The MOD has much to learn from Civil aviation in the area of air safety. Huge steps have been made since this accident and I hope they continue.
It is my hope that the MOD is not too arrogant to ensure that such injustice does not occur again. Safety investigation is about understanding the cause to prevent recurrence, not pinning the blame on those who can not answer purely because it is the easiest course.
In my guises on this forum (I first joined in year one) I have met no one who would celebrate a tragedy, what is being celebrated here is the reversal of an injustice to two Airmen Pilloried without proper evidence.
I too will celebrate that and the positive effect just culture has on flight safety. To the families, I hope they can now pick up their lives and finally get closure from this nightmare.