History / Warsaw Rising 1944 - National Disaster or Triumph of Spirit ? [515]


He is.

If Poland simply waited for the inevitable German vs Soviet fight to the end - she could have waited and waited until the Soviet overstretched their supply lines in the race for Berlin....and then BANG. A Polish attack on the Soviets would have destroyed their supply lines quickly and easily - leaving Poland in the situation where an already-massively-depleted Red Army would have had to not only fight the Germans in the last desperate phases of the war, but also the Poles.

Can't imagine that the Red Army would have won - it's well documented that they were simply throwing men forward at all costs in order to get to Berlin first.

The Warsaw Uprising should be commemorated with a single, solitary flag flying with the black ribbon in the centre of Warsaw -no more, no less. It was utterly tragic that so many people died in vain - the AK leadership almost certainly has blood on their hands for this. It was simply a dreadful move - brave, courageous, but dreadful.

News / Polish final report on Smoleńsk aircrash [859]


Worth pointing out that despite not being exactly on course, they (most of the time) were within the tolerances allowed.

What might be interesting is if you go back and look at his qualifications - he wasn't qualified to make such an approach in those conditions. In fact, even if you assume that the "visibility : 400m" is correct - then he had no business even attempting such an approach.


For me, the most interesting is the way that they repaired the plane after a bird-strike 2 days before. Had no influence on the accident, yet shows what the culture was there.

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He's just another one of those guys who spends his life reading conspiracy theories in an attempt to find THE TRUTH, even when it's presented in front of him in black and white.

Still, I wonder what makes him better than those many experts that participated in the Polish investigation.

News / Polish final report on Smoleńsk aircrash [859]


No. Most of them are either happy to believe the news source (such as those who watch TVN24) - or they already think that the report is full of lies and thus there's no point reading it.

Have you read it? What's your knowledge of aviation? Perhaps could you explain to us, as a lay person, why we don't have a Decision Height in an NDB approach?

Ah...silence.

News / Polish final report on Smoleńsk aircrash [859]


That's not really relevant - while his training was lacking, he had nearly 3000 hours on the Tupolev - with nearly 500 as commander. In fact, the bulk of his experience was on the Tupolev - so it's not right to call him inexperienced for a military pilot.


For me, "no conditions for landing" are the same as "airport closed". They mean the same thing to all practical extents.


Perhaps. But there was no harm in letting them go down to 100m.


Again - it wasn't entirely factual, but nothing on p.263 shows them to have done anything that threatened the safety of the flight.


At that point, it was possibly too late anyway. Bear in mind that we're talking about a matter of seconds when the LZC was under heavy stress - it wasn't a precision approach, after all. He may simply have assumed that they had reached 100m and had initiated the go-around - which is a fair assumption to make.

As you can see though, from the report - the LZC's behaviour can be explained in several ways. So yes, although a contributory factor, it didn't directly lead to the destruction of the plane. It all goes back to the 100m point - which was broken.


Yes, but it didn't cause the crash.


Again - wild unsubstantiated speculation.

He wasn't liked, but he was still the President of Poland and respected for that.

Losing the election was guaranteed. His ratings were in the toilet, and he stood to lose badly - hence why he was going to Katyn for exposure. Incidentally - there were people on that flight from all over the political spectrum - not just his buddies.


Exactly. It hurts to realise that the bulk of the blame lies within Poland for the death of the President and many others. It's especially hurtful for those who were depending on him and his appointee (Blasik) to keep them safe from perceived dangers.

Human nature, I suppose.

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Seanus, be fair - he wasn't inexperienced, but his training was...well...interesting.


Unless it was a precision approach (it wasn't) - what they were told was an irrelevance - at 130m, they had to either spot the runway or go around. There wasn't any other choice open to them - what they did was simply wrong.

At 0635 - they were told clearly that at 100m, they should prepare to go-around. But again - the Tupolev had the requirement of spotting the runway at 130m, not 100m - of course, the ATC guys wouldn't know the specific minimums for each plane.

At 0637 - the Yak guys told them that visibility was down to 200m.

Seanus - at no point after they crossed the 100m barrier did they receive any messages about being on the glidepath. The last message came in at 114m above the runway. After that, the next communication was the Horizon command.

Again - responsibility to keep that plane no lower than 100m without clearance lies with the commander. It simply wasn't a precision approach - hence why the "on glidepath" remarks should have been treated for what they were - advisory and not binding.


Because most of us who know anything trust the authors of the report more than wild speculation. We also realise that Lech Kaczynski was headed for a devastating electoral defeat - at one point before the accident, he was forecast to lose in the 1st round. There was simply nothing to be gained by making a martyr out of him.


As above - at 130m, he should have either spotted the runway or leave. Nothing else was legal in the circumstances.

(Sky : thank you, as always, for your insight into how aviation works - I appreciate it)

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That's what the big mystery is and will always will be - what was he doing using that?

It's a shame that the button press (if it was pressed) wasn't recorded - it would almost certainly provide a concrete answer as to what his intentions were.

News / Polish final report on Smoleńsk aircrash [859]


It's hard to comment because we can only speculate as to why - my feeling is the same as they say in the report - that he wanted to shut the TAWS system up. But...still. Lunacy.


No, not quite. They were cleared to 100m - no more. Given that the Tupolev minima was 130m, in reality, they should have obeyed that rather than the controllers. It wasn't a precision approach - so the ATC guidance was simply advisory in nature.

The theory that the commander did what he did on many occasions (press the TOGA button and wait) does make sense - possibly because it always worked before, as he would've been making ILS landings with the Tupolev - and when he tried to do the same thing here, it caught him out.

Still - my golden question - why did he go below 100m when not cleared to do so?

News / Polish final report on Smoleńsk aircrash [859]


Generally, he was seen as stubborn and uncooperative. A lot of anti-EU rhetoric too - but precious little action. The fact that he signed the Lisbon agreement when he didn't have to was his worst hour.

Mind you - he was also seen in a good light for some of his real successes, such as his work with the Jewish community.

News / Polish final report on Smoleńsk aircrash [859]


I don't even think it was incompetence, just the usual Russian lack-of-decision making. Same problem exists in Poland, too.


Nope - as said above by several people, the barometric altimeter was correct, as confirmed by General Blasik. The lack of information isn't really much of a problem - you go by what you can see regardless of forecasts. And - Smolensk made it clear - "no conditions for landing". They had the information needed - and chose to ignore it for reasons best known to themselves.


It's worth pointing out that while he wasn't exactly liked, he was heading for a devastating election defeat - which was far more useful for PO and Europe than a plane crash which killed him and made him a martyr among certain people.

Most observers made the huge mistake of assuming that the President had power (especially American observers) - when in reality, he had barely any.

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Her intentions are honest, but I think she's been swayed by reading too many "opinion" pieces that outright lie about things, like the most recent one she posted.

Many people found it impossible to grasp that Smolensk-North was so utterly lacking in equipment - but that's because they only ever fly from Civilian Airport A to Civilian Airport B on a commercial service.

News / Polish final report on Smoleńsk aircrash [859]


Certainly, shall we have some fun?


Not true in the slightest. In fact, many people thought that while it was a cruel coincidence, they also realised that trying to land a plane in heavy fog at an airport which wasn't equipped with an ILS (or similar) system was always going to be difficult. It was only ever a minority in Poland that was screaming RUSSIA MURDER.


Again, more groundless speculation. Do you really, honestly think that the BOR are so useless (and Kaczynski so inept as not to order it?) as to not check a plane thoroughly for any sort of bugging device?


What ILS at Smolensk-North? It didn't exist! The airport was closed, remember?


What ILS ground transmitters?


The Yak landed without clearance - and could've easily crashed too. Landing safely isn't and wasn't the same thing as approaching safely.


As the report says, confirmed with Google Earth - the outer NDB marker was actually at close to 7km from the runway.


Has to be an error? The TU-154 is well known for the high landing speed - for instance, the B version has a landing speed of around 230km/h - and the M variant is higher.


Covered above. Perhaps he might want to tell me what a Civil convention has to do with a military flight.


Strong? He clearly doesn't realise that the Polish Presidency is a rather weak position with little executive power.

Too easy.

News / Polish final report on Smoleńsk aircrash [859]


Good question. Perhaps in your attempt to blame the Russians, you can explain to us why the pilot didn't react as soon as he reached the minimum altitude allowed for visually spotting the runway. That's 130m, barometric, by the way. He was in full possession of the barometric data - Blasik's readouts have confirmed this.


What was different? Trees don't grow several metres in three days.

Actually, what was different was that he wasn't flying the plane then.


Listen to what convex is telling you - ATC is advisory. The pilot has the responsibility to maintain the correct altitude - he got to 130m and continued to descend rather than 'go around'. When he reached 130m, in terms of aviation, he was required to either spot the runway or 'go around'. He didn't see the runway and instead chose to keep descending - which led to the crash.

He couldn't see anything, yes? So - according to his licence, he shouldn't even have attempted the landing. Perhaps you might want to explain why he did?


Common myth. In fact, they're there to provide information to help the pilots make the correct decisions.


Not "according to some critics", but rather "according to aviation law".

The commander has supreme responsibility, unless he explicitly delegates this to ATC. There is such a thing where the controller takes responsibility, but they certainly weren't flying such an approach on that day into Smolensk-North.

Incidentally, Monia - again - you paste things with little to no knowledge of what they contain. Perhaps you might want to tell us just what the Chicago Convention has to do with a military flight? Perhaps the correct name of the convention might help you -

News / Polish final report on Smoleńsk aircrash [859]

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radar_altimeter

Again, I quote.


Seriously now...

Go away and read up about decision heights - here - I'll give you a link.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decision_height#Decision_height_or_altitude

Now - tell me - what was the TU-154M's decision height?

Keep it civil.

News / Polish final report on Smoleńsk aircrash [859]

By the way, regarding the ravine.

Again, you've pushed and pushed and pushed the theory that they didn't know that it was there.

But - page 228 of the English report contradicts you dramatically.

The commander certainly knew about it.

News / Polish final report on Smoleńsk aircrash [859]


Again - you're telling deliberate lies. I'm not sure why, but page 229 of the English report makes it clear that it was fine.

Where in the report do you read anything about a false barometric reading? What page? Or is this just your hypothesis, based on nothing and certainly contradictory to the official report?


It's not unbearable. The CVR shows that it's loud enough to be heard, but not unbearable.


'some experts'? What experts?

We've had tests done, and we can clearly see that he attempted to do something that simply didn't work. And anyway, he made the go-around call far too late. If he had made the GA call at 130m, realised 5 seconds later that the button wasn't working and then started to pull up - maybe, just maybe, the plane would've escaped by a matter of meters. But anyway - it was pilot error - if he was trained properly, he'd know that the TOGA button wouldn't work in such a circumstance.


Yes, it was far too much for him. That's why the plane hit the ground.

Monia, he made mistakes and killed everyone as a result. The Russians didn't help (the late calls, etc), but the ultimate blame has to lie with him. The Russians didn't guide him into the ground - he put the plane there himself.

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There was information from Smolensk. Read the transcript - the barometric information was clearly given. You can even listen to the CVR if you want.


Again, you don't seem to show much, if any knowledge about aviation. If you were truly a pilots daughter, you'd know that pilots are given approach charts for every airport - which would tell them exactly what was installed at what airport and how to land there. The charts given to them had no mention of an ILS, so - what's the issue?


I've read it several times - and you seem to be claiming things that contradict what's written in the report.

Take a look here - krakowpost.com/article/2132

10:24:49,2: D: The temperature (incomp.), air pressure 7-45. 7-4-5, the landing conditions are nonexistent.

Air pressure 7-4-5. That's the setting for the barometric altimeter. It's there in black and white - why are you trying to contradict this?


Because the airport was fine for what it was - a closed ex-military airport with minimal facilities. I've said numerous times - it was sheer stupidity on the part of the military to even attempt to fly there - and they learnt the hard way. Sure, the lights were obscured - but what difference would they make when Blasik said "visibility : zero"?

Bear in mind one thing - Smolensk controllers told them clearly that there were "no conditions for landing".

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So - this whole story about the equipment at Smolensk is based on the writing of one journalist, who opposes Putin and claims that he has power over all European leaders?

Utter nonsense and not worth listening to. Until someone credible comes forward to say that a portable ILS system was installed - the claim must be treated as hearsay.

From wikipedia -


Such a nice, trusting woman - isn't she?


Standard equipment? Hardly informative - was it an ILS system, was he talking about the 2xNDB, what?

News / Polish final report on Smoleńsk aircrash [859]


Again - who went below minima? Not the superiors, not the Russians, but the commander of the plane.

The report makes it pretty clear that it looks like he was expecting the magic "button" to work as it always did, only to be surprised when it didn't. But he still made the go-around call far, far too late.


Again - the pilots went below minima. Not anyone else.

News / Polish final report on Smoleńsk aircrash [859]

If I had the President, as well as many other VIP's on my back, then I wouldn't take the risk to begin with.

News / Polish final report on Smoleńsk aircrash [859]


Strange that the same pilot managed to land there three days before in the same plane at the same airport, without problem - if it was really so dangerous, how come they managed then?

News / Polish final report on Smoleńsk aircrash [859]

Vitebsk was closed - which was another sign of the incompetence of the Air Force to have such an airport as an alternative.

Anyway, in the absence of a decision, he could circle Smolensk-North for upto half an hour while waiting for a decision. He could also try and land again - he had plenty of options.


The truth is in the Polish report, as far as I'm concerned. And that truth makes it clear that the ultimate responsibility for this crash lies at the hands of the commander.


He had the current barometer - it's given quite clearly to him. He decided to change it in order to silence the TAWS.

Anyway, let me teach you something about the concept of minima. The TU-154M's minima was actually 130m (what the ATC cleared him to has no relevance here) - which means that either radio or barometric, he should have never, ever gone below this. Now, a known characteristic of the TU-154M is that it drops about 20-40m before it starts to rise when you "pull up" - so he should've made that decision a bit higher, perhaps around 160m.

So - at 160m - if he couldn't see the runway, he should've pulled up and flew away. There were no trees at 160m, were there?

This is what most people simply don't understand.

Anyway, at the end of the day, *nothing* changes the fact that the commander put the plane into the ground.

News / Polish final report on Smoleńsk aircrash [859]


What do you expect from a closed, decommissioned airport that was only reopened to deal with these flights?

More importantly, what the hell did the Polish expect?


Again, more nonsense.

The crash was caused by the pilot going below minimums. Generally speaking, minima are there for a reason - go below them, and you're going to have problems.

News / Polish final report on Smoleńsk aircrash [859]


I remind you that under aviation law, the commander of the plane has full responsibility for the flight. Civilian or military, it doesn't matter - the commander is the man in charge. It doesn't matter if Blasik was there, it doesn't matter if the Commander-in-Chief was there - none of them have the authority to overrule the designated commander of the plane - unless they withdraw his command.

If he wished to go somewhere else, it would be his decision and his decision only as to where they fly to.


So - a Polish mistake in not making such that such materials were available. They should have never allowed a flight to an aerodrome of which they had incomplete information, don't you think? Nothing to do with the Russians, everything to do with the Poles.


The Yak-40 guys made it pretty clear to them that things were bad there. Anyway - yes, you're right - and yet more reason why they should've never gone below 100m.


Wrong. The transcripts issued clearly show that they had the correct air pressure - no-one has contradicted the air pressure given.

Incidentally - the action with the TAWS device was a deliberate act in order to silence it. They had the correct air pressure -there's no arguments about this. I can see that you're not familiar with these devices - but essentially, the device would scream "pull up, pull up" because Smolensk-North wasn't in its database. That's why they had to manipulate the barometric altimeter, in order to silence the device.


He didn't have to do that at all - the CVR recording makes it obvious that it was in the background.


It's an irrelevance, because in the event of failing to make a landing, they would "go around" and circle until a decision was made. Again - quite normal.


Well trained? He wasn't even qualified to fly the TU-154M on that day!

Extremely intelligent? He took the plane below minima at an aerodrome that was more-or-less out of use in conditions where he had zero visibility. There's no escaping this.

If you ask me, the final blame lies at the door of the military. We know the Polish military is simply unfit for purpose - due to years of underinvestment and problems with nepotism. We can blame the controllers, the pilots, everyone - but at the end of the day, it's institutional failure on a large scale that led to this accident.

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Puppets?

That's a pretty serious allegation to make. Bear in mind that the report actually does contain heavy criticism of the controllers - and they are mentioned as one of the contributory causes of the accident.


Whether or not you trust the Russians is one thing, but I trust the Poles. The guys investigating this were some of the top guys in the country - to accuse them of being puppets is very, very serious stuff.


Again - you don't seem to understand the concept of minima. If they had kept to the minimums that they were authorised to go to (it's all in the report) - then the plane wouldn't have crashed. The Captain went way, way below them - and that caused the crash. Unless of course, you're telling me that there were obstacles at the 100-130m (Barometric) height? That's news to me.


Correct, it was sheer idiocy to put the President and Prime Minister there. The airport was essentially a piece of tarmac with some very basic landing aids - and was more or less not operating as an airport. The state (as shown in the report) of the infrastructure was shocking and certainly not suitable for a 'HEAD' flight.


Perhaps so. However, it's an irrelevance - as far as the Poles knew, there was no ILS installed at Smolensk-North. At the end of the day - if there was such equipment or not, it really doesn't matter - it wasn't being used on this approach and that's that.


Again - it's the captain's responsibility to fly the plane safely. If there was no ILS, then he shouldn't have been taking risks - and he certainly shouldn't have gone below 100m barometric. Of course, an ILS system would help - but it wasn't there, so what were they doing going below 100m?


That's why the Defence Minister has gone.

You're actually right here - it was sheer madness to allow a plane with the President to go to such an airport, even in perfect weather conditions - they simply weren't set up for accepting such flights. Even the Russians were pretty reluctant to allow them to land there before that day - and you can hear from the ATC discussions that they were preparing to send them to Moscow.

The fact that the BOR officers couldn't gain access to the airfield should have been enough reason to not go there.

Monia, some Poles do have blood on their hands, but at the end of the day - the commander of the plane took it into the ground, not anyone else. It happens a hell of a lot - I seem to remember a figure of 1/3rd of aviation accidents are due to pilots flying planes into the ground. The CASA accident was a great example, as was Korean Air Flight 801 among countless others.

It happens :(

News / Polish final report on Smoleńsk aircrash [859]


Care to tell me what international protocol is when dealing with a military accident over your territory?

Hint : ICAO regulations don't apply.


Yawn. Same old nonsense. People on here (who can actually fly planes) have already attested to the attitude of the Air Force in Poland, and the CASA accident certainly had nothing to do with Russians.


Keep your opinions on the other side of the pond - we don't need them.

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Quite badly, actually - from the report, it says that the command to go-around was given at a mere 39m above the runway.

News / Polish final report on Smoleńsk aircrash [859]


In a situation like this, where you can't see anything out of the window and with the head of the Air Force breathing down your neck, along with the President of the country on-board, who *must* attend a very important ceremony (for him)? It's pretty obvious that they were under huge stress at the time, not helped by the utter unfamiliarity with such a situation.

Anyway - the real altitude was available to them all the time. General Blasik was even reading it out to them!


They didn't need to have any knowledge of it - they shouldn't have been using the Radio Altimeter. It's as simple as that. Can you give me any credible explanation why they were using the Radio and not the Barometric altimeter? Blasik was able to use the Barometric readings - so...


Now - under such a high stress situation, is it such a surprise that the events spiralled out of control for them? They more-or-less had to descend to minima to make sure that their boss didn't give them hell afterwards, after all. Now - perhaps you might want to explain why the plane had already gone down to below 100m before the "go around" command was given? That's well below the height that they were allowed to be at!


Using the radio altimeter rather than the barometric - no-one knows. As for flying too low - it's quite possible that the commander of the flight chose to go lower than he was allowed to go in order to give himself a chance at landing the plane. We'll never know, but such behaviour was/is common in the Air Force.


The whole idea is that they were wrongly using the radio altimeter instead of the barometric altimeter - for reasons unknown. It may have been to silence the TAWS system - which didn't have Smolensk-North in its database. Don't forget - the navigator and Blasik were both reading out numbers - one, the RA data, the other, the Barometric data.

News / Polish final report on Smoleńsk aircrash [859]


Monia - with all due respect, this is rubbish. There were two types of altimeter used - radio and barometric. The radio one measures from the plane to the ground, while the barometric one measures from the runway height to the plane. It seems that they switched from barometric to radio in order to inhibit the TAWS system. There's no conspiracy here - their decision to do this was one of the reasons why that plane crashed.

(incidentally - Blasik was reading out barometric readings - Page 226 of the English report makes it clear that he was reading those out, while the rest were working with the Radio Altimeter)


Planes certainly can, but not at an airport which doesn't have a precision landing system installed. There was no ILS at Smolensk-North, nor was there anything else (okay, so there was the 2xNDB markers - but they are hardly "precision").

The airport wasn't closed, this is true - but at the same time, they were clearly told that there were "no conditions for landing". This is as good as closed - the plane went below 100m without authorisation. In fact, if you read the report, you can clearly see that although they were cleared to 100m, they weren't allowed to actually go near that - they should've "gone around" from a much higher height. Airport open or closed, it's an irrelevance - they weren't cleared to land and certainly weren't cleared to go below 100m.


The barometric altimeter, if they were paying attention to it, would mean that they would be at least 140m over the deepest part of the ravine if they obeyed minima. However, the report makes it clear that they were aware of the ravine there.


The barometric altimeter would have done just that. In fact - they shouldn't have had to adjust the plane at all, as they should've been "going around" by the time they crossed the ravine. How can you excuse the "go around" order coming far too late?

Sorry Monia, but read the report rather than the media - it's all there in black and white.


They shouldn't have been using the radio altimeter at all, but rather the barometric one.

Again - a clear cut sign of incompetence within the Air Force.

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Least and yet most significant at the same time.

They do make it clear in the report that he was under immense stress at the time. Again though - it confirms the Russian theory that he was simply too much of a nice guy to be doing that job.