Having finally gotten round to reading Fate is the Hunter by Ernest K Gann recently, I feel that one passage is particularly relevant to this whole affair.
The (civilian) pilot in question was searching for a C-87 (cargo Liberator), with a crew and 17 sick and injured passengers on board, which had crashed in the Canadian Arctic during WW2. He was flying another C-87 on instruments at night over unknown terrain when he lost two engines on the same side and lost access to the fuel on that side too.
As a result, he could not reach any recognised airport. However, he learned over the radio that there was a new field still under construction that he could just make. It was much too small for a C-87 but it did have a radio range. When he arrived over the airport, he was told that the short runway only had a few kerosene flares, the ceiling was far below limits, visibility was half a mile, or even less in heavy blowing snow, and the wind was strong across the runway.
Ernest K Gann continues, "True to his profession, McGuire said later it was a rotten instrument approach. He was referring to his minor technical misdemeanors as if they were important at the time. HIs critique deliberately skipped the fact that the aeroplane was flying askew, everything below was foreign to him including the nature of the terrain, and they had to lengthen the runway before the C-87 could be flown away again. Nor would be mention how he swept down through the squalls, caught a mere glimpse of the runway, then somehow squeezed the ship into it's limitations, and landed without scratching the staggering beast of an aeroplane. All of these things, he passed off as inconvenient tribulations which it would be in poor taste to discuss....... It was he who was fraudulent, anyone must understand, and the ultimate success was achieved in spite of his efforts rather than because of them."