Jay Honeck wrote:
snip
still hard to believe that they made such a simple mistake. (The final
judgment was that the pilot had set his altimeter incorrectly, resulting in
insufficient altitude for the maneuver.)

He didn't exactly (allegedly) "set" his altimeter incorrectly.
According to Avweb:

"The pilot incorrectly climbed to 1,670 feet AGL instead of 2,500 feet
before initiating the pull-down to the Split-S maneuver, according to
the Air Force news release. The pilot, Chris Stricklin, 31, apparently
flew by mistake to the MSL altitude used when practicing the maneuver
at his home base, Nellis AFB in Nevada, which is 1,000 feet lower than
the Idaho field elevation."

Regards,

Rob