a few words about flight planning.
seems that sometimes 'we can do it' attitude, supported by a piece of paper (cfp, ofp) goes a long way with crews and AROs.
this story could have stopped right at dep airport.
dont know if they used a cfp and if that cfp gave same figure for eet and endurance.
if it did then maybe it is time for the cfp provider to re-arrange the algorithms to not allow eet = endurance.