O Romeo, Romeo! wherefore art thou Romeo? Deny thy father and refuse thy name;
On 20 Dec 1995, the crew of AA965 selected waypoint ident R in their FMS and allowed a turn towards it, thinking that it was the Rozo NDB. It wasn't, it was the Romeo NDB, and unfortunately for AA965 there was a large mountain between their present position and Romeo.
While such a confusion is unlikely with 5-character significant points, reading the Cali report got me thinking about the proliferation of such waypoints in Europe, and the increasing tendency for ATC to ask us to fly direct to somewhere we've never heard of. As a single pilot flying IFR it makes me more than a little nervous.
So how is this situation handled in 2-crew operations? What procedures do you follow to ensure that you know exactly what's going to happen when the aircraft turns towards that seemingly random point that you first heard of a few seconds ago?