Regardless of the circumstance, my apologies & condolences to the friends & family of the crew and any passengers. From your short description, this seems like an easily avoided accident and I hope actions are being taken to prevent a recurrence.
What was the the MKI?
Nah, I am going to go with Optically tested and Corrected vision. A uniquely human trait.
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Mk1%20eyeball
Probably the most shocking part is that there was a lighthouse on this island, which was operational at the time. This is shocking both because it should have been blindingly obvious to the pilot and crew that they were flying toward a lighthouse, and also that an island significant enough to have a lighthouse on it would not be on a digital mapping system. It's on Google maps - https://goo.gl/maps/Xdt7rzUErX42, even has photos and information. This is not some insignificant rock
How an aircraft mapping system can have such a huge omission is just mind-blowing
Something that is geographically notable but quite small, vertical and isolated (like Rockall) may very well also be omitted from that version of the EGPWS database.
NB Blackrock is a designated navigational waypoint on the standard charts etc. which is why they were flying straight toward it on autopilot.
Why are "small" and "isolated" good criteria for omitting something from a database of elevation geometry? It's evidently big enough to crash into and cause loss of life.
If the source is some kind of DEM (digital elevation model) data, it will be a raster of elevation values at some limited resolution, so necessarily just samples of elevation. With a relatively small island/rock, the full height could be missed, and possibly then even further reduced by filtering (i.e. smoothing of DEM values, either in the process of measurement or some kind of processing). That likelihood is hinted at by this quote from the manufacturer:
"Honeywell’s terrain data is sourced from our supplier [named supplier]. It is a digitized topographic map derived data set. It does not include Black Rock. We have looked at alternate sources, including SRTM and ASTER. While Black Rock is present in these alternate data sets, the actual altitude of Black Rock is considerably higher than what is indicated in these alternate data sets."
The data sources they refer to: http://www2.jpl.nasa.gov/srtm/ https://asterweb.jpl.nasa.gov/gdem.asp
Again, not coming to any conclusions from this.
Preliminary accident report is at [1].
[1] http://www.aaiu.ie/sites/default/files/report-attachments/RE...
> In relation to Black Rock and its Lighthouse the EGPWS manufacturer informed the Investigation that “The lighthouse obstacle is not in the obstacle database and the terrain of the island is not in our terrain database.”
http://www.aaiu.ie/sites/default/files/report-attachments/RE...
The cause was a blind over-reliance on a single chart which did not show any navigation hazards in the area. Other charts available to the crew had indications of the presence of a seamount.
> The preliminary report by AAIU investigators found that the helicopter had hit the island, which was not registered in the craft's mapping system and was only identified by a crew member only 13 seconds before impact.
Seriously?