If witness accounts of visibility are correct, the pilots should have transferred to Instrument Flight Rules, which would require the pilots to slow the aircraft and climb to a safe altitude at the best climbing speed. In the area around the Mull of Kintyre, the safe altitude would be above sea level, above the highest point of the terrain. The height of the crash site of ZD576 was , below the minimum safe level. The Board of Inquiry into the accident recommended formal procedures for transition from Visual Flight Rules to Instrument Flight Rules in mid-flight be developed, and the RAF has since integrated such practices into standard pilot training.