We've been over this before, but just because the rules state that the pilot is responsible for navigation under VMC rules, it does not automatically follow that the pilot should be blamed for an accident if one or more outside factors for which they are not prepared are the root cause of said misidentification.
They asked for, and got, the responsibility to seperate the aircraft from terrain visually. After that happens, as P in C it comes down to your own comfort levels with regard to how you identify where the ground is and where the aircraft is. I'm not actually aguing that the pilots should be blamed for this crash, just that some of the responsibility lies with them. The word
some in that sentence is important. There wouldn't even be an argument if those in your camp didn't want complete absolution of responsibility for the crew who flew a servicable heavy jet at 1500ft, 250kts, below MSA, in a foreign environment, while navigating visually, into the mountain, after the met service had told them that the cloud was broken at 2000ft and there were snow showers in the area. Complete absolution is too much. It would be a very dangerous day for airline travel the day that the P in C didn't hold some responsibility for doing that.