It's like having a green arrow to turn at an intersection while driving your car. Technically you have right of way but there is a pedestrian crossing the road to which you must give way to first. An aircraft on the runway is like that pedestrian crossing the road. While the landing aircraft has the right of way over a departing aircraft they should give way to a runway obstruction under normal circumstances.
There are at least two wrongs here and they don't make a right! The first wrong was the failure of the taxiing aircraft to give way to a landing aircraft. The second wrong was for the landing aircraft to continue the landing after noting an aircraft entering the runway. The question is, who is more in the wrong?!
I doubt we would be reading about this if the C172 had gone around.
Doesn't mean the goose in the 172 was 'legal' to land though, it just means that if he had plowed into the Dash and killed everyone, the Dash pilots would have copped the blame in the subsequent investigation
I wouldn't be so sure they would cop ALL the blame... Especially as we know that the landing aircraft was aware of the aircraft on the runway before he landed. I would like to see the non-existent regulation that gives a landing aircraft not in distress 'right of way' and permission to land with an aircraft already 'on' a runway...
And don't worry Bloggs, if I know about you I promise I'll give way to you before entering a runway - yours is bigger than mine!