One of the many complaints leveled at the ATSB is the timeliness of their investigations. If FGD was in the ATSB wordsmithing his reports there would be no output.
I'm not sure whether he is deliberately being misleading or only gives the reports a superficial glance.
Here is the exact wording from the report:
When they realised they were becoming low on the approach the pilot reduced flaps by 10° rather than apply power. This was done to avoid reheating the turbo chargers as they had already cooled.
Written this way, it sounds like the ATSB speaking. There is thus considerable implied authority to those words. A young pilot, transitioning to a turbocharged type, for example, may take away messages about turbocharger cooling and the validity of retracting flaps on final for this purpose.
But we know that these words were probably those of the pilot, which dramatically changes their authority. The report should have been written such that it was clear that those words were from the pilot.
They were noted in the report as being comments from the pilot.If you are going to use quotes from the report then use the context of the quote. This is the quote in its context and who the comment is attributed to:
Pilot comments
The pilot of VH-JQS provided the following comments:
• They had flown into Barwon Heads regularly over the previous five to six years and were familiar with the airport, including the displaced threshold and the vicinity of the Barwon Heads Road.
• In addition to flying duties, the pilot was also working as the company maintenance controller, and had recently taken on extra administrative duties. They stated that they were distracted during the incident flight by these additional pressures.
• The desired approach profile was about a 3° (5 %) descent profile. The pilot was aiming to land about a quarter of the way into the runway in order to ensure clearance over Barwon Heads Road.
• There were no issues with visibility or cloud cover but there was a gusting wind from the northwest. The aircraft became low on approach due to turbulence and windshear.
• When they realised they were becoming low on the approach the pilot reduced flaps by 10° rather than apply power. This was done to avoid reheating the turbo chargers as they had already cooled.
• The truck was not detected earlier as it had been obscured by a row of trees to the south-west of the airport.
I have put in the bold part. So the report does actually attribute the comment in the way you suggest that it should! Maybe you should actually read the report and not approach it like a harrumphing school principal with a big red pen.
This is from the findings section which is the ATSB voice:
Findings
These findings should not be read as apportioning blame or liability to any particular organisation or individual.
• The aircraft descended below the desired approach profile and the corrective action was not effective in sufficiently reducing the rate of descent.
So the ATSB is in fact saying that the technique used by the pilot didn't work in reducing the rate of descent. If a young pilot interprets the findings in the way you have suggested then I don't really think that its the ATSB's report writing that is at fault.
Your rewrite is actually very similar to what was written:
Your statement:
How about, "Upon realising the aircraft was low on the approach, the pilot elected to retract one stage of flap, rather than apply power. The pilot believed that applying power would adversely impact on turbocharger cooling".
The ATSB version:
Safety analysis
At about half a nautical mile from the runway, the aircraft became low on the approach. When the pilot recognised that the aircraft was too low, they elected to reduce the flap setting by 10° rather than add power. As the aircraft got closer to the runway, the aircraft was still lower than the
desired approach profile, at which point the pilot elected to add power to gain height. Despite this action, the aircraft remained below the desired approach profile until it made contact with the truck.
On TMs point:
By ATSB accepting the pilot's excuses and not offering expert engineering comment to refute the pilot's reasoning, how can other pilots reading this report expect to learn from this incident.
Are you talking performance, aeronautical or mechanical? Other pilots can learn from this incident by not reducing flap on final to reduce their RoD and use power when its needed otherwise you may hit something on approach. You don't need expert opinion to draw that conclusion.