Originally Posted by
Lead Balloon
If I may presume to dissent from the content of A Squared's, et al, posts.
The comparators used by A Squared are matters over which there is no control: the position of mountains, the wind direction and the phenomenon of storms.
The location of the RAAF Base at Williamtown is merely a decision of humans. A decision that can be changed.]
The night that the pilot walked out to his airplane with known malfunctions of flight critical systems, with the intention of departing into poor metrological conditions, the RAAF base was an immutable fact in the context of that flight and the pilot's responsibilities to conduct it safely.
I get that there is a contingent here who feel that the ATC procedures associated with the base should be changed, or even that the base should be moved elsewhere. That may be. I really don't have an opinion one way or another on that.
But, those advocates diverge from rationality when they attempt to blame the astonishingly poor decisions made that night by the pilot upon the RAAF.