What would you have done to prevent this tragedy given the senior pilot was disobeying a direct order?

I smell BS. I spent almost a career in aviation and short of combat, no pilot has the marbles to disobey a direct order when it has anything to do with environmentals. They don't just lose their wings making that call. They face jail time. This story smells like the Marine who 'accidentally' shot a fellow gate guard in the chest. You can't get me to believe that one either. Never. Someone is covering their ass, lying, or so full of crap that they could also be running for president. Play me the tape from flight ops proving they acknowledged the order. When millions of dollars get destroyed and there is a loss of life (Class A aviation incident) expect a lot of busses to start getting thrown around, cause someone is going to be found under one.

Unfortunately this kills many civilian pilots as well. I have my PPL and you are taught not to wager your skills against mother nature or beyond your abilities as it will get you killed and worse, possibly get someone else killed.

I have my doubts the pilot disobeyed a direct order. Given the experience on board, I gather all of them felt it was safe to at least try. The article is fuzzy and says something about aborting the mission in flight. I can only assume the pilot became disoriented and flew into the ocean(can happen to the best pilots)( the sky and the ocean do that grey/blue thing,add night, add fog , ow), and possibly an instrumental or mechanical issue also.

The disobeyed orders thing, if true, sound more like somebodys doing CYA, for being right or wrong

In theory security trumps rank.

An investigation is much like "Monday morning quarterbacking". Without aircrew member survivors no one knows the details of what happened. It is a sad loss of life, experience, and talent.

There is not much a soldier can do in this situation when the pilot in command screws up.

The below processes might have a different name now but the process is pretty much the same as when I was in.

There are only 2 reports that you should take interest in, the Safety Investigation report, which tries to find out the cause of the accident and how to prevent further incidents, and the collateral investigation which assigns blame and punishment. Those are the only 2 sources I would take anything away from.

Next, as mentioned above, there is the Air Mission Briefing and Risk Analysis. What were the parameters set forth in the Air Mission Briefing (AMB) that is agreed upon by all participants (aviation and supported units). This was a multi-ship mission so there had to be an Air Mission Commander (AMC) assigned. It could have been any of the pilots (pilot-in-Command or co-pilot) in either of the aircraft. The AMC has control over the air operations. The AMC has the authority to shut down operations if any of the Air Mission Briefing or the Air Crew Briefing parameters are in danger of being violated. So, who gave the Air Crew Briefing and who was the AMC? Also, the 2 Pilot-in-Commands can make an abort mission call. I have done it many times in my career.

Now for the other aircrew members. As a Pilot-in-Command, I always took the thoughts and recommendations of my other crew members seriously. If they felt uneasy about an aspect of the mission, then chances were that I would cancel the mission. They always knew that they had a voice in the decision making process.

I cannot believe that a CW4 would blatantly disregard mission parameters and I cannot believe that a CW4 would allow himself to be "Bullied" or "ordered from above" to violate the mission parameters. Every soldier wants to accomplish the mission. But, those that have been put in charge have also been trained and given the resources to conduct operations while maintaining the safety of all personnel involved in that mission.

This article does not pass the smell test.

Something doesn't seem right with this "blaming the over confident pilot" thing. I have known many Aviators and Air Crew during my service in the Navy and none of them would knowingly risk endangering themselves, their crew, or passengers. I'm thinking this is a case of blame the dead pilots and air crew because they can't defend themselves. I would also be willing to bet that there is some type of mission audio recording that is going to make someone look extremely bad.

There is an old saying I heard years ago. If everyone dies its the pilots fault. If the pilot lives its the aircrafts fault. Seems this mantra is holding true, no one can challenge this to see if it is true.

Following the chain of command is drilled into us but a Korean Airline crashed years ago, killing all aboard because the senior pilot was allowed to keep flying lower when the copilot and navigator should have relieved him of command and saved all their lives. Being reprimanded for disobedience is tough but death is forever!