"As I got closer, two huge lightning bolts arced into the ground in the gap, and it seemed to narrow quickly. Bugger this I thought. "
That was the best thought you had that flight.. Possibly in your life..
Who knows exactly what happened this flight, or in many others. As Ernest Gann put it , many great pilots are not here to put up their own argument..
What I will say is this. When we lose people that we care about, it can be hard to admit they may have been all or in part at fault, or made decisions that led to the outcome, but in aviation we have to be open and honest particularly with ourselves to try and limit the number of these accidents. Blindly protecting anyone will lead to more disasters of this nature, and the facts will come out in time whatever happened.
This is not the place to come if you have recently lost someone, because we will discuss what may have happened here on a rumour network. There is nothing wrong with this.. It is important to speculate because it opens up other avenues of thought that may save one single person and that would surely be enough. The truth in this incident may or may not come out in time. I hope it does.
Sorry to those who are experiencing the loss..