gulfairs
A difference that jumps out at me is the fact that you had the "aviate" part under control; this doesn't seem to be the case with MS804. It appears that the flight crew was already overtasked, and in any event, a turn in MS 804's case would have taken him away from the nearest runway. Straight ahead, he surely knew that he was almost close enough to see the lights of Alexandria. Also, the sky was all his at that time on that night, afik there was only one other aircraft even within VHF distance.
But some are more procedure bound than others; under the Dryfus model, an "expert" has the ability to:
"Transcend reliance on rules, guidelines, and maxims" if the situation calls for it. This guy had 6,000 hours as a commercial pilot, he certainly wasn't a novice.
But you may be right, as the problem began he may have thought he had it under control and was just beginning to go through a checklist. So he cleared his airspace first.