I'm not sure this is in the right forum, but I thought a story in this morning's LA Times might be of interest to my fellow geocachers.
It's amazing that the same kind of rookie GPS mistake that may cause me to walk an extra couple miles can also get a whole lot of people killed:
quote:With Taliban still huddled in ridges across the river, a commander in the second team of Green Berets called for airstrikes to wipe the enemy out. One of two Air Force TAC-Ps, tactical air control parties whose training puts them a level below more seasoned combat controllers, calculated the distance to the enemy. He radioed in the coordinates.
Defense officials would later conclude that he relayed the wrong numbers--giving his own position instead of the enemy's. The airman failed to reenter the target's coordinates after changing the batteries on his global positioning system unit. After a battery change, the unit automatically displays its own location.
About 9:30 a.m. came the rumble of a Vietnam-era B-52.
LA Times - 3/27/02
28 Americans and Afghan allies were killed and dozens of others were wounded.