My condolences to the families of the deceased and those who knew them personally.
Over the years I found - and long before I registered as a member - that the new and archived threads are a formidable source of aviation related information. Not all, but often, this information emerges from the discussion around accident causes & circumstances.
I find it unnecessary if contributors are ridiculed when their questions show lack of complete technical understanding. Hey, he was asking a question, and those who are in the know may respond!
It is understandable that those who are close to you, are closer to your heart, and the fate of those who are far away, stir lesser sympathy. That's just our human nature. But isn't it hypocritical to supress open discussion under the pretext of respect or military secrecy / code of honour just because the deceased are central European, while in cases of far-away incidents (read: Turkish, Asian, ...) the debates are boundless and don't refrain from - rightly or wrongly - patronising remarks about the safety or other culture in other countries?
Personally, I am not more or less affected by this accident than by any other aviation accident. Being a pilot myself, it is close to my heart even without having known the deceased. Therefore, I want to know what happened, in the interest of aviation safety and with the hope to be able to at least learn something from this tragedy. In this sense I would hope the open discussion on all technical and human/CRM aspects of the operation of the A400M as well as the accident sequence may continue.