Let's imagine for a moment that this aircraft had been operated by a private contractor and five servicemen had died after the series of issues which occurred in the lead-up to this crash. Of course this was both "Sad" and "tragic"...but are these really the words which would first come to mind? How about "rage" or "disbelief"?
As Jaytee says, it's clear the crew were "messing about" what's also clear is a long list of minor infringements, short-cuts and "tolerations" which had obviously gone on for some time prior. One of those killed had recently survived another major lapse of professionalism at the hands of another service aircrew.As a ppruner said in another context, perhaps we need to look more closely at the qualities which are encouraged. Service pilots are generally good guys, get along, keen to respect and be respected by their peers. Perhaps that's part of the issue. Maybe we need people who are prepared to challenge, ask the difficult question, say "no". The guy who would refuse to leave a flight deck while his colleagues seat was fully back, object if he wound the rad-alt alarm down to 25', even if it did cause some difficult moments in the bar later.