As a dispatcher (the kind that plans/files the flight plan here in the US, and not the kind of dispatcher that you deal with at the gate in the UK and elsewehere), I'd readily concur that it's probably a flight planning error, and not a crew or ATC error.
Typos are very easy to make. When they're made on VORs, there error usually reveals itself quickly via a big difference in fuel burn/ETE. One guy coming out of Chicago to LAX recently (usually via RBS, to the south) told us ATC was sending him to Moline and read it off as MOL. MOL is, of course, Montebello, VA (south of the Washington DC area), and was one heck of a zig before zagging back westward towards LAX. Putting the correct "MZV" in for Moline fixed that one.
Based upon how an outfit's computer system is set-up, making typos on destinations can be easy to do, or precluded entirely. Our system is set-up for the latter, by use of city-pairs, and as such, the destination is hard-coded. We obviously have the ability to go from A-B via Podunk, or via BFE, or any other route we choose, but the destination is already in there, immune from fat-fingered humans.