You're right! He's totally in the clear!
He's dead, of course, but he's in the clear.
Dude, I'm not saying he is in the clear - he may have well fouled up when he returned to the cockpit. And yes, kudos to your astute observation that he is indeed dead. What I'm commenting on is your inference that he took his scheduled break in spite of the peril the aircraft was in - and that does not appear to be the case. Crashes like this are an aberration, and the normal routines and procedures, including breaks for pilots, are executed without incident many thousands of times every single day. It's easy to armchair quarterback in situations like this, but this could simply be attributed to poor training for aberrant situations, as some other posters have said.