Hey West Coast, it's ok. A big debate might not solve anything.
I stand corrected at least twice on previous pages, but it might help us all to avoid any political motivations on Pprune. These are splashed all over the media every day. Even Texas-bashing (but not Arkansas-the Clintons' home turf...) is now in vogue, but certainly not on Pprune.........
My only point, despite the very embarassing mistakes made by the crew, is to wonder whether the two (or three?) B-52 pilots had any disagreements between them about which airfield was the correct one? It is difficult to imagine that an all-night flight or any long mission could result in major fatigue issues... They will probably be much more reliable and thorough while navigating in the future compared to the many pilots who know that it could never happen to them, even over unfamiliar landscape.
How was the crew's CRM? It is tempting to believe the more experienced crewmember (also usually 'in command'). But we have never been tempted by what we see outside-oh noooo. I once quickly verified with a tower controller that we were lined up at night on the correct runway at a fairly unfamiliar airport (ABQ?), possibly with an unreliable localizer, or just an inexact VOR radial. The Captain was a little irked for a moment that I even questioned it. This paid off a few years later in Portland where a parallel runway was very hard for the Captain to see. A Pensacola Approach controller had us on about a seven mile final at Hurlburt AFB-the controller believed that we were on final for Eglin AFB (Ft. Walton Beach), or simply forgot our destination due to heavy Navy Training Command and various civilian traffic nearby! Luckily, we knew that most of Eglin is west of the north-south runway, but Hurlburt AFB is the opposite. By the way, can any Jepp. 10-9 ground charts of Biggs AAF or El Paso be made available here?
