A lucky escape
Speedbird, the way it read at the time, and even today, the aircraft commander had two issues.
A failure to exercise captaincy and a disregard for the safety of all on board.
It takes guts to tell the heir to the throne he's not capable of handling the aircraft, but the alternative is a much greater chance of seeing said guts out in the open very shortly. I thought the difficult decisions are the reasons the gaffers get the big money.
I feel sorry for the Nav. "No Stick - No Vote" should ensure no stick to stir means no stick to get beaten with.
Do we know if the Captain was a QFI? I ask this in connection with a thread running in Private Flying about allowing unqualified people to "have a pole" in aircraft without an Instructor present.
What circumstances / rules allowed HRH to handle the aircraft?
My view is that HRH "bumped" the aircraft, but the captain allowed him to do so.
To get back on topic, who knows what handling skills HRH has nowadays, but the events with the 146 that day suggest that he didn't know when to say he didn't know. What a shame that nobody told him at the time.