CelticRambler: You highlight a big big difference here yourself. We have an airline in a situation where basically nothing happens, forecasted thunderstorms in Madrid on a july evening which ends up with 3 aircrafts in a Mayday situation,
and on the other side, you have an airline, who due to fast-changing situation while inflight in a very unstable environment takes measures to preserve the security of their pax and who gets its solutions cut short due to unpredictable ATC of a country in war...Those flights (like a lot of respectable airlines) have the merit not to be uncontrolled missiles once launched. You can still communicate with them and give the best of your info, like a coup, an unsecured airport area or thunderstorms ahead leading colleagues to be short on fuel...:P
Back to the topic: although captains responsabilities, if 3 of them have the same problem in the situation I guess one can call it a systemic problem and not purely blame the individuals. Also, reading that preflight planning is more or less paperwork shows exactly what pressurizing your employees bring : loss of priority management. If somebody constantly nags you everyday with the same crap with the heavy power to do whatever they want with your life, then quite quickly people will think more about staying under the radar rather than taking required measures which would lead to more pressure,things to justify and consequences.
I guess the lies/word twisting to the extreme that has more or less been demonstrated with the minutes of holding not being in the hold just reflects once again the mentality of management. Never to be blamed, no shame, no respect,pathetic pride.