Court of enquiry
Enquiries into military aircraft aircraft accidents have excited many in the past with emotion setting the tone of comments rather than facts or the law. A board is not a court of law and does not find crew guilty or to blame, it is tasked with discovering the most probable cause of an accident and stating what might be done to prevent repeats or reduce their consequence.
The Scottish helicopter crash well illustrates this point
After a board is complete senior officers will opine on the findings and add their own understanding, again criminal or civil law is not involved. The Kings regulations as described did not apply to this accident as they had long been replaced by the manual of air force law. MAFL
Military law had many flaws but the purpose was to establish and maintain an effective military force, fairness was important but secondary.In some ways it was fairer than criminal law for example a man charged with drunkeness could not face a charge, like a magistrate, for 24 hours on the other hand like my friend at Marham he could be court martialled and dismissed the service for failing to attend a dinner