Double Bogey
Your comment about a go round is inaccurate
"This is an event which is unusual, especially for a pilot who is v. experienced in night deck landings, as most of his approaches will generally result in a successful landing."
A go round, as 332Mistress explained to you, is not an unusual occurrence for a shuttle pilot. Due to the nature of shuttling the next rig is not always ready to give deck available as you approach so we usually set up the approach expecting deck clearance sometime during the approach. If we don't get it we go around - this happens on a regular basis!
The comments about thread creep are usually mentioned to encourage people to start new threads if they have an idea they think needs exploring and not let a thread, which concerns 7 people dieing wander off into irrelevant discussions.
Although the P2 was the HP with 300+ hrs shuttling he may have over 300 night deck landings - nearly as many as a Puma pilot would get in 10 yrs!!
Shuttle pilots hand fly the a/c most of the time so while disorientation may be a factor in this accident I do find it hard to believe it was the initial trigger.
HF