jonnyjetprop - Of course it was pilot error, anytime a perfectly good airplane is put in the dirt there is pilot error involved. Once upon a time, investigations ended right then and there: the pilots screwed up. After years and years of crashes caused by pilots screwing up, we eventually came to realize that investigations must go further to find out why the pilots screwed up to have any hope of preventing repeats. There are often cultural and environmental factors that are much, much bigger than the pilots involved. This is one of those cases, I think.