The UCMJ does not mandate blind obedience to every order. Indeed if an order is unlawful, your duty is to disobey that order (i.e. an order to kill enemy wounded or otherwise commit a crime).
In this case, the pilots refused to fly an aircraft they have reasonable reason to believe is unsafe, hazarding their life and the lives of their students for no good reason. If their chain of command attempted to court martial them, that fact would provide an effective defense. The leadership realized that.
Military service involves placing your life on the line during combat or critical operations. But during training, safety is paramount, casualties during training are not available for the fight. Even SEAL training, the most intense the military offers, has limits. Which is why training deaths are rare throughout the armed forces.
I'm an old Army guy who rose to the lofty rank of SP5 and who knows literally nothing about the Navy or about aviation.The most dangerous thing I was ever ordered to do in uniform was eat Army chow.
However...on the subject of "unlawful orders" I did my BCT in '69...after My Lai.We had a class in which an officer (1LT) touched on the subject and specifically said that one has no duty to obey an *unlawful* order.But strangely I don't recall him giving us a single example of an "unlawful" order.
Of course I don't want to see Navy pilots put in harm's way unnecessarily....I was only commenting on the "refusing" part.
The NATOPS (flight manual) is written in blood. There is a problem which they are having trouble determining and fixing. These guys don’t want their name attached as a footnote a a new emergency procedure.