News Polish President died in plane crash...

[Poscik]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/8612825.stm

 

[IronRain]

It might sounds weird, but thank you for the post.
It's terrible news...

 

[Urwumpe]

My condolences to all friends and families who lost one on this crash, was pretty shocking to read this in the news this morning, especially since Kacznyski was on the way to a historic meeting today. Really an ironic tragedy, that the Polish president died on the way to a memorial of killed polish officers. Makes it easy to believe Katyn is haunted.

The cause for the accident is hard to tell yet, but poor visibility likely contributed to the accident.

 

[IronRain]

on the dutch television was said the following:

''The advise to the pilots was not to land there but on Moscow due to the bad weather. The pilots kind of ignored this and tried 3 times to land on the airfield. the 4th time went wrong. The plane hit a tree and crashed. For Russia is this also a hard shock because they were flying in a Russian plane. In the past, there were several other crashes with the same type of plane and in the same conditions.''

 

[Urwumpe]

Looking at the fatality list from Wikipedia, it looks like a large number of important representatives of Poland perished.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Polish_Air_Force_Tu-154_crash

Especially it seems like all commanders-in-chief of the Polish military died in the crash, together with some ministers.

Maybe somebody can confirm this, the article states the airport in Smolensk has no ILS, which under that conditions is really a huge hazard, since you can only land visual if you can see something at all.

 

[Fixerger]

Terrible news. Was shocked :O

R.I.P.

 

[IronRain]

Looking at the fatality list from Wikipedia, it looks like a large number of important representatives of Poland perished.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Polish_Air_Force_Tu-154_crash

Especially it seems like all commanders-in-chief of the Polish military died in the crash, together with some ministers.

Maybe somebody can confirm this, the article states the airport in Smolensk has no ILS, which under that conditions is really a huge hazard, since you can only land visual if you can see something at all.

Yes indeed, there were important people on that flight.

and about the airport, I think your right, because they were told that landing was actually to dangerous. there are/were allot of trees in front of the runway...

 

[RisingFury]

That's horrible! My condolences to the families and friends of the deciesed.

 

[Kalman]

For me its still hard to believe what happened! It's surely one of most dark and sad day for my country Don't know what to write more...

 

[dougkeenan]

Terrible news.

 

[IronRain]

For me its still hard to believe what happened! It's surely one of most dark and sad day for my country Don't know what to write more...

I want to wish you and your country the best..

 

[Graham2001]

For me its still hard to believe what happened! It's surely one of most dark and sad day for my country Don't know what to write more...

My sympathies to your country and it's people.

 

[ex-orbinaut]

I am deeply moved and sorry to read about this accident. My heartfelt condolences go out to all relatives involved and to the people of Poland.

 

[Ghostrider]

It's a very sad day for Poland, and especially for the relatives of the victims. Although this is a heavy blow for Poland's institutions, the country has managed to survive much worse and will pull through again.

 

[orb]

Maybe somebody can confirm this, the article states the airport in Smolensk has no ILS, which under that conditions is really a huge hazard, since you can only land visual if you can see something at all.

Couldn't find any relevant information about ILS at XUBS/UUBS. I only found a middle marker (БПРМ) on the approach path on a map.

 

[jinglesassy]

Poland shouldnt of tried to land(Sorry cant resist) RIP to everyone who died were there any survivors of the crash?

 

[Istochnikov]

No survivors...

My condolences for the Polish people.

 

[Fixerger]

Some guy posted that links with photos:

http://www.sukhoi.ru/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=108982&d=1270893647 - map of location. red text from left to right -> location of crash - part of wing - first touch

http://www.sukhoi.ru/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=108986&d=1270894126 - first (?) trees damaged by falling Tu

 

[Eraser]

Deep condolences to the Polish people. What a terrible tragedy. Katyn - a cursed place, sure.

 

[Eagle]

I guess its good that there doesn't appear to be any foul play. It will be interesting to see how Polish politics change after a nearly total loss of their senior leadership.