Go to the VC10 website and read the article re-produced from an Air Clues report in 1969 regarding the RAF VC10 that missed America. I do not mean it missed the USA. No, it missed America - all of it: South America, Central America and North America and was finally located over Greenland heading North in a gentle turn to the right.
They were a "very competent crew" - the Nav had some 8000 hrs under his belt.
Hardly very competent. The navigator was ignorant of Command SOPs, the Captain had scant understanding of gyro navigation. Planning had not been completed before the aircraft took off. The navigator mis-set a critical piece of equipment and the aircraft ended up over 500 miles off track.
Wg Cdr Spry later commented:
This navigator had a total experience of getting on for 8000 hrs. Yet when his log and chart of this trip were examined afterwards by a highly-qualified examiner, an appalling number of errors, omissions and deficiencies were brought to light, not the least being the fact that his astro-fixing was woefully inaccurate.
Experience? Or complacency?
This has no relevance to the Chinook accident. The cause of the accident, despite many red herrings about truckie breakfast policy or little green SEALs scurrying about on the Mull with wacky wirelesses, is
unknown.