This is just a circular argument thats been going on for years. At the end of the day, regardless of how many mistakes were made by people who work on the ground, regardless of how corrupt Air NZ were in covering up, regardless of how terrible the whole event was, regardless of what other pilots did on other days in other weather, prior to descending it's the Captains responsibility to ensure, by whatever means he/she thinks is neccessary, that they are not going to hit a hill. If thats by overheading the TACAN, great, if if it's by doing a radial/DME check, great, if it's by radar identification, great, plotting lat/longs on a map, great. But verifying position prior to descending below MSA was not done satisfactorily. That is a mistake by the crew that would have prevented the crash just as successfully as if the coordinate change mistake had not been made. The diference is that the Captain is soley responsible for keeping the aircraft in one piece all of the time, not just when flight planning make no mistakes, but all of the time.There is no moment in time when the flight planners are soley responsible for the aircrafts safety. As pilots we enjoy the respect of the position, the pay packet, and the responsibility when things are going nicely, we have to own that responsibility when things go wrong as well.
I fully acknowledge that this crew was set up to a large extent and that it was a very very tricky situation that would have caught many crews out, so although it may read like it, I'm not actually having a go at the crew. It just seems so short sighted when people put ALL of the blame on one party and refuse to acknowledge that the crew also made mistakes.
All of the parties involved made mistakes.