In any aviation incident, it’s generally a good idea to wait for the full NTSB report before drawing any firm conclusions.

That said, it is exceedingly difficult to find any explanation for what happened in this case that doesn’t boil down to incompetence or gross negligence.

There were so many opportunities to avoid this accident. The crew seemingly more or less single-handedly punched a hole straight through the entire Swiss cheese model. It’s so bad it’s hard to imagine they weren’t drunk at the controls.

> In any aviation incident, it’s generally a good idea to wait for the full NTSB report before drawing any firm conclusions.

It's also pretty rare for the NTSB to release this much information ahead of their full report. I wonder why.

This is honestly one of the few cases where it looks so blatantly and obviously negligent that I'm comfortable commenting ahead of the investigation results.

Even in a case where someone has drilled themselves into a mountainside, there's value in trying to see things like "were they distracted? Was there mechanical failure? Did they have a freak medical emergency and get incapacitated? Did unexpected weather crop up?" And in other cases, it's a "but for the grace of God go I" moment where you understand how they could have made the wrong decision in good faith. Even years out of the cockpit, I'm willing to give most aviators the benefit of the doubt, because God knows I screwed up enough in my day.

But the only thing I can think of that compares to this level of negligence was the F/A-18 pilot 20 or so years ago who lost his wings after booming his non-towered hometown airport at over 500 knots and below 500 feet with absolutely zero pre-authorization or waiver from the FAA for that kind of thing.