While I agree the pilots should have questioned the altitude clearance, if they were in a radar environment ATC could descend them below the published MEA/MSA down to the MVA (since the MVA is a more detailed charting of minimum safe altitudes). The pilots most likely would have had no available reference for MVA. Many pilots fall into the trap of trusting ATC too much and at worse it appears these pilots fell victim to controller error and complacency.
That was a very weird altitude clearance though, I believe standard practices require that ATC only descend an aircraft to the IAF or FAF crossing altitude and then clear them for the approach. I've never seen ATC arbitrarily select an altitude for descent.
Last edited by Island-Flyer; 17th Mar 2013 at 10:23.