Branson is a decent chap, he's built his empire from the ground up, and I've heard he's pretty good to work for. The whole 'take as much holiday as you want' policy that he put out a month or two ago was very Google-esque.
Back on the subject at hand, it seems that pilot error was the cause of this terrible incident:
http://www.theguardian.com/science/2...iptwo-disaster