News Polish President died in plane crash...

[Enjo]

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

Yes, they shouldn't have tried landing. From what I've learned, it's a standard procedure that after 2nd failed landing retry, the pilot should decide to change the landing site. However, for all those in media who blame the pilot, there's one thing to consider - social pressure. First thing is that if the officials landed in another airport, they couldn't get to the place in time. You also have to know the personality of Kaczyński. Let me bring up an episode from Kaczyński and his crew's flight to Azerbaijan in August, 2008, when during the flight, the officials asked cpt. Grzegorz Pietruczuk to land in Tbilisi, Georgia, where few days before, a conflict between Russia and Georgia had ignited. The pilot consulted the decision with his commander and rejected landing because of security reasons. Then the president himself entered the pilot's cabin and was convincing the pilot to land. The pilot finally rejected. Kaczyński later told the journalists on board that if somebody decides to be an officer, then he shouldn't be a cowardly person.
My family was telling me that the pilot later suffered from a depression because of that.

Having this in mind, and even considering that nobody was convincing this pilot to land in Smoleńsk, as it was with cpt. Pietruczuk (I've heard that German TV was interviewing Russians about black boxes and they admitted that the pilot was pressurized, before the Russians gave the black boxes away to the Polish side - a grain of salt on this one please), this pilot still remembered the situation with cpt. Pietruczuk, and didn't want to risk his own carrier.

(some articles for translation here )

There's also a regulation saying that there should never be so many irreplaceable people (think of military guys now) on one plane.

There was also another stupid situation with Polish official who went outside the Polish village - Jan Rokita, who couldn't accept the fact that regulations on German airports concern him no matter if he's a Polish official or a hitch-hiking drunkard.

And this is the Polish disease - not giving a s*** about any procedures / regulations / security because "what could possibly go wrong" (I hear this too many times on my job...) , and in this case, or with the Rokita's case - "We're the Polish officials! We don't care about your stupid procedures!"

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.

They will for maybe 1 month and it will fade away, just like with the Pope.

What irritates me the most is the Polish TV, which only shows emotions and little reasoning. One presenter was asking some of his guests things like - "What do you think - is this what we see some kind of a SIGN?" Yeah. a sign that I should switch to Discovery channel and have tons of laugh from watching Brainiac while "the whole nation" is in great depression.

Well, life goes on! I still have to go to work tomorrow.

 

[Kalman]

There's also a regulation saying that there should never be so many irreplaceable people (think of military guys now) on one plane.

I fully agree with my fellow man here. Half of them should be flight in other plane.Think about what would happen , if some other country attack us now....

 

[Urwumpe]

I fully agree with my fellow man here. Half of them should be flight in other plane.Think about what would happen , if some other country attack us now....

Germany would have to DEFEND you now. Think about it, that is something that is surreal considering Polands history of the past 1500 years. Usually, Germany coming to defend Poland resulted in Poland being suddenly only half as large.

 

[SiberianTiger]

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.

There is no official information yet, but some sources state that the airfield was not equipped with either ILS or VOR/DME systems. The only landing radio equipment was РСБН, a standard for Russian military air navigation. Tu-154M mod of Tu-154 family might not have the appropriate receiver for that system. The airfield Pechyorsk (Smolensk-Northern, no ICAO code) is a industrial and military transport field, not supposed for civilian planes to land on. In addition, its air traffic controllers speak Russian, not English, according to the instruction, and the crew might have additional problems with that.

I am completely lost in trying to find out, why they wouldn't be offered to attempt landing at Smolensk-Southern (ICAO: UUBS) instead. The Wikipedia states it's closed for arrivals.

The trees were reportedly not exceptionally tall, the 1st hit mark in the woods are at about 10 to 15 meters high.

So, unfortunately, I believe it's a quite rich set of possibilities of who to blame.

R.I.P. the victims. A mourning day is declared in Russia and it's too bad that it has coincided with the Day of Cosmonautics today. Seeing the black bands at tip of flags twice in the same month is depressing.

 

[SiberianTiger]

http://www.upi.com/Top_News/Interna...ed-for-Polish-plane-crash/UPI-18891274883744/

WARSAW, Poland, May 26 (UPI) -- Blame for the April crash of Poland's presidential plane in Russia rests squarely on the shoulders of the crew, Poland's envoy to the crash investigation says.

"The pilots ignored all danger warnings shown by the aircraft's automatic controls, and took an undue risk," Klich says.

http://www.itar-tass.com/eng/level2.html?NewsID=15173386&PageNum=0

MOSCOW, May 28 (Itar-Tass) -- Russia will hand over copies of the flight recordings of the Polish Tu-154 plane, which with many Polish top officials headed by president Lech Kaczynski aboard crashed near Smolensk on April 10.



The procedure to copy the recordings will take place in the Interstate Aviation Committee building in the presence of the press at about 15:30 Moscow time, and then the copies will be handed over to Polish representatives, a committee source told Itar-Tass. The Interstate Aviation Committee conducts an investigation into the crash that killed all the 96 people aboard.



Earlier this week, the head of the Polish State Commission for Aircraft Accident Investigation, Edmund Klich, who participates in the work of the IAC technical commission, said that the crash of the president's plane was an error of the Polish air force pilots.



The pilots ignored all the warnings of the automatic systems signalling about the danger and took the extreme risk. Why? Since they were trained so, the Gazeta Wyborcza cited him as saying.



According to Klich, the systems constantly signalled them at what altitude they were. However, the pilots continued to descend and ignored even the signal "the ground is close". The risky manoeuvre, which caused the crash, was not an exception – ignoring of piloting regulations is widely spread among military pilots, he added.



Klich in another interview confirmed that one who was not a crew member was in the plane cabin at the moment of the crash. It was Polish Air Force Commander Andrzej Blasik. His voice was identified in the flight recording. The general did not say a word that could put pressure on the crew, Klich noted. At the same time he admitted that Blasik's presence could put indirect pressure on the pilots. Just his presence could put pressure, the commission head admitted.



When approaching the airport, the crew knew that the altitude was not sufficient, less than 100 metres from the ground. But despite the dense fog, they continued to descend. According to the flight recording, the plane systems were in good working condition, and the pilots heard the air traffic controller's commands to stop descending and come to a horizontal flight.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/37437986

MOSCOW - Russia agreed Monday to give Poland copies of cockpit recordings as part of an investigation into last month's plane crash that killed Polish President Lech Kaczynski.

During a meeting in Moscow, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov and Polish Interior Minister Jerzy Miller signed an agreement allowing Poland to obtain the recordings.


Under the deal, the original black box recordings will stay in Russia until the investigation is completed.


Story continues below ↓advertisement | your ad here


"Handing over the copies does not mean the investigation is over," Ivanov said during the meeting.

And finally, the official transcript of the recording itself:

http://pics.rbc.ru/files/top/stenogram_2010_06_01.pdf

The text is in Polish with Russian translation.

At 10:38:02,2 after they say, "He'd go mad, if we keep {...}"

Since 10:40:42,0 and till the collision, it was the TAWS who went mad ("TERRAIN AHEAD, TERRAIN AHEAD, PULL UP, PULL UP" - dozen times). h:

 

[AirSimming]

The risky manoeuvre, which caused the crash, was not an exception – ignoring of piloting regulations is widely spread among military pilots, he added.

Ignoring of some things is also not uncommon in civil/commercial aviation. I wouldn't say widely spread, but it happens quite often though, but just does not end with disasters all the time. It is mostly a typical result of feeling experienced enough to disregard certain warnings and advices. Something like "I exactly know what I'm doing, since I have flown thousands of hours". When you start to always feel secure and become arrogant, you are going to make mistakes.

An example is Hapag Lloyd flight 3378 in 2000 (Airbus A310), originally scheduled to fly from Greece (Crete) to Germany (Hannover), but ended prematurely with a crash landing in Austria (Vienna). The landing gear did not retract after take off in Crete. The pilots decided to continue the entire flight to Germany with the extracted landing gear. To estimate the fuel consumption they've used, as usual, the Flight Management System. But the pilot-in-command ignored the advice by the first officer, who mentioned that the FMS does not take the higher drag into account due to the extracted landing gear. The pilot decided to continue using the FMS nevertheless. When they've got the indication that the reserve fuel was already undershot, they still decided to continue the flight at least to Vienna, but they still did not report the ATC that they are going to be in an emergency situation. They did it only when both engines had quit a few miles before reaching the Vienna airport, which was more than late already. They crash landed still on the airfield though. As far as I remember, everybody onboard survived. The pilot later got a suspended sentence for his behaviour and decisions.

 

[Loru]

At 10:38:02,2 after they say, "He'd go mad, if we keep {...}"

According to transcript this quote was said by "unknown voice" so it could be some president's advisor forcing pilots to land. We don't have entire transcript nor the briefing so we could not tell what was the situation's background.

Piloting VIP aircraft is very stressfull situation for pilots. There were rumors about similar situations (forcing pilots to do something) in polish airforce but thankfully none of them ended like this.

Also there was a situation when polish helicopter (Mi-8) carrying prime minister suffered a major failure and crashed but all crew and passengers survived. After the crash there was 6 year long trial of pilot but thankfully it ended with "not guilty" verdict.
More details here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2003_Polish_Air_Force_Mi-8_crash

We need to revise our air regulations, and pilot's power to prevent those situations in the future.

It's similar to my experience with sailing. When I'm skipper crew and passangers must do exactly what I'm saying because it's my responsibilty to keep them alive. I personally saw few sailing accidents in my life and all were caused by not obeying
skipper's orders.

 

[replicant]

Regs do get ignored sometimes...but 3 or 4 times? They should have diverted long before that.

 

[Hielor]

Regs do get ignored sometimes...but 3 or 4 times? They should have diverted long before that.

The suspicion, I believe, is that they were under pressure to complete the landing at this airport, as a diversion would've delayed the VIPs on board.

Now they'll never arrive. Better an hour late than dead.