Gender-free plural pronouns: may be used throughout the report to refer to an individual (i.e. they, them and their).
So we have an aircraft crewed by one pilot. Within a couple of paragraphs, the ATSB is referring to the single pilot as "they"
The report then chops and changes between "the pilot" and "they"
It may have been used in educated speech and in all but the most formal writing to refer to singular indefinite pronouns or singular nouns of general personal reference but where an investigation into an accident has established that there was only one pilot, I would have thought that the use of "the Pilot" would be more appropriate and consistent.
Is this now the level of written English in the public service?
https://www.atsb.gov.au/publications...r/ao-2016-170/