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   I read with interest Mr. Dorsey's statement that his company was being
sued because of an airline crew's typing a wrong identifier in their flight
management system on a flight into an airport in South America and then
flying into a mountain.  This struck a nerve with me because it involved my
airline on a night flight into Columbia and the statement is missing a very
pertinent fact, as Mr. Dorsey is well aware.
  The identifier that was typed in by the crew was correct: it just happened
that another station nearby shared the exact same identifier (which
consisted of a single letter) and the crew didn't catch this.  It was the
confusion over the identifier that was found to be a major contributing
factor in the crash and the reason Mr. Dorsey's company is being sued, as he
probably works for either the company that makes the FMS or the one that
provides the database for it.  I don't fault anyone's company for the
identifier mix up, as Columbia came up with their navigational identifiers,
but Mr. Dorsey seems ready to blame that crew entirely for what happened,
which seems a bit harsh.
   My biggest question is what on earth that situation, which involved a
certificated airliner in part 121 operation has to do with Garmin 530's.  If
you're going to cast aspersions on airline pilots Mr. Dorsey, be aware that
some of us will be here to tell the rest of the story.
   Skip Slater


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