I think BEA is saying that, if this was a movie you had been watching, at this point you would give up all hope of a happy ending.
EDIT: What was lacking was 'a good understanding of the situation'. With that they should have known what to do about it, and would not need a 'purpose' to do it. The quote is from the part of the BEA report that is "mainly based on the results of the work of the Human Factors group". IMO it speaks more of the HF than of airframe technicalities.
Last edited by HazelNuts39; 30th Jul 2012 at 12:59.