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Posts by convex  

Joined: 25 Nov 2009 / Male ♂ 		Last Post: 28 Nov 2011
Threads: Total: 20 / Live: 2 / Archived: 18
Posts: Total: 3928 / Live: 746 / Archived: 3182 		From: Wroclaw
Speaks Polish?: un poco...wait
Interests: aviation

Displayed posts: 748 / page 18 of 25
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convex   
15 Apr 2010
News / Polish President Lech Kaczynski and gov officials die in a plane crash in Russia [686]

Just a bit of info on the crew

- (captain) kpt. pil. Arkadiusz PROTASIUK - total time: 3528h (on Tu-154M - 2937h)
- (first officer) mjr pil. Robert GRZYWNA - total time: 1939h (on Tu-154M - 506h)
- (navigator) por. pil. Artur ZIĘTEK - total time: 1069h (on Tu-154M - 59h, as navigator)
- (flight engineer) chor. Andrzej MICHALAK - total time 330h

RIP
convex   
15 Apr 2010
News / THE ARMY OF POLAND - THE REALITY [493]

Not if the yanks defaulted on their debts. :)

Never going to happen, that's the beauty of fiat money :)

The US will just impoverish its citizens...
convex   
14 Apr 2010
News / THE ARMY OF POLAND - THE REALITY [493]

I am also surprised nobody has mentioned China as a potential aggressor.

China has nothing to gain.
convex   
12 Apr 2010
News / Polish President Lech Kaczynski and gov officials die in a plane crash in Russia [686]

....oh and it begins

Distrust runs deep and, on Monday, slivers of acrimony were creeping in.

"I'm concerned about the situation in Poland," said Jolanta Szczypinska, a leading lawmaker from the Law and Justice Party. "I'm worried about the actions of Komorowski, that he'll step outside of his obligations and do certain things that are above him."

Szczypinska wore all black, and her eyes repeatedly clouded with tears as she spoke.

convex   
12 Apr 2010
News / Polish President Lech Kaczynski and gov officials die in a plane crash in Russia [686]

I fear it will be the pilot!

It'll be the dead pilot of course.

What is really tragic because then his surviving family won't get any pension or other support, not to mention the psychological burden...:(

Not so sure about that. Anyway, you almost never end up with "The pilot was a f*ck up". That doesn't answer why it happened. Was it training, stress, rest, etc...
convex   
12 Apr 2010
News / Polish President Lech Kaczynski and gov officials die in a plane crash in Russia [686]

all over polish media they mention about Minsk and Moskow. Why not Vitebsk?

Guess not many people know of Vitebsk. Neither of the airfields there have precision approaches though. I wonder what the alternate would have been. Based on the transcripts, the pilot was going to attempt an approach, and then divert. Guessing that would have been Moscow?
convex   
12 Apr 2010
News / Polish President Lech Kaczynski and gov officials die in a plane crash in Russia [686]

Just simple logic, no experienced pilot would land the plane in such difficult circumstances. This tragic attempt to land was definitely maid on the order from the highest in command. He was in a hurry.

Plenty of experienced pilots would attempt an approach. That's the entire point of an instrument approach. The question is why did he descend below the minimums.
convex   
12 Apr 2010
News / Polish President Lech Kaczynski and gov officials die in a plane crash in Russia [686]

Maybe, maybe not. The news is now that there was a single approach attempted, with the crew telling ATC that they would divert if they couldn't put it down. There is some speculation that it might be a QNH/QFE problem, which would just be incredibly sad. I figure the GPWS would have been screaming at them that they were too low, but who knows. I guess the CVR and the flight data will let us know.
convex   
11 Apr 2010
News / Polish President Lech Kaczynski and gov officials die in a plane crash in Russia [686]

That military aerodrome didnt have a ICAO certificate

There's no such thing as an ICAO certificate. It's a military airport and has an ICAO identifier (XUBS).

Also there is another alternative aerodrome close by available for citizens and its actually well equipped don't know why the President didn't have an honor to land there. Isn't weird that president was on private visit and didn't have an official visiting status by the Russian government?

The closest civilian airport in Russia is Vnukovo.
fallingrain.com/icao/XUBS.html
Smolensk North is a military airport, they usually don't let civilian planes land there...It was an official head of state flight.

Speaking of cliping something, have you seen a tree that is as tall as 400-500 meter?
those ppl just gave an interview and dont have a single reason to lie.

The kids that they interviewed yesterday morning said they saw the plane clip the treeline, which makes sense considering the valley in front of the airport. My guess is they were following their radar altimeter and the slope snuck up on them. There was a comment somewhere about crossing the NDB at 8m instead of 60m (as per the approach).
convex   
11 Apr 2010
News / Polish President Lech Kaczynski and gov officials die in a plane crash in Russia [686]

As I know there were two planes.

There was weather changing going on?

Anyway, regarding the earlier flight, it was a Yak-40 with journalists, and it landed safely earlier in the morning. A Russian IL-76 then made two approaches and diverted to Moscow.

They landed at Smolensk because it was made available and wouldn't take a day of ground travel to get to Katyn (as would have been the case had they gone to Minsk or Moscow). The airport is just fine when the weather is ok. They have an NDB approach available there, but no approach lighting.

Here's the weather for that morning, it's not unusual especially considering the spread at dawn.

10:00Z (1pm) Temp 3°C Dew 2°C Humidity 94% QNH 1025 hPa Visibility 4 kilometers Winds east 14.4 km/h / Mist
07:00Z (10am) Temp 1°C Dew 1°C Humidity 98% QNH 1026 hPa Visibility 0.5 kilometers Winds SE 10.8 km/h / Heavy Fog
04:00Z (7am) Temp 0°C Dew -1°C Humidity 89% QNH 1025 hPa Visibility 4 kilometers Winds ESE 7.2 km/h / Mist
01:00Z (4am) Temp 3°C Dew -0°C Humidity 72% QNH 1025 hPa Visibility 10 kilometers Winds SE 7.2 km/h /
22:00Z (1am) Temp 6°C Dew -0°C Humidity 52% QNH 1025 hPa Visibility 10 kilometers Winds SE 7.2 km/h

Three mistakes simply because the pilot couldnt land so he made a circle three time and obviously knew that he didn't suppose to land but somehow risked it??? Weird.

Not really that weird, happens all the time. "Get-there-itis". Think about the pressure the crew was under. There was no back up plan. **** poor planning.

And again there were witnesses (regular people), saying the plane was unbalanced, meaning crashed on one side and the distance was apprx. 400-500 meter. For the pilot if it's a fog issue still it's not a problem to control the balance, even if u are going to crash.

Unless you clip something. See the accident report earlier.

Also if it would've been any other country, then it wouldn't sound as suspicious but it's Putin we talk about, guy who promoted all the misbalance in Ukraine, Georgia and now in Kirgizia, if u think of it it's the same pace plan.

According to others here, those were because Soros and the Jews (and possibly Vatican Nazi Zombies).

Occam's razor is a good place to start, and work back from there.
convex   
11 Apr 2010
News / Polish President Lech Kaczynski and gov officials die in a plane crash in Russia [686]

Accidents do happen but not usually with politicians who are against your political views and not when Russia is changing the versions and keep saying that pilot was unprofessional.

Plenty of accidents happen when you don't plan things out sensibly. There was no backup plan to get the delegation to Katyn. Either the plane landed at Smolensk that morning, or the ceremony would be missed. Diverting was not an option, as it would have caused everyone to miss the ceremony, which obviously would have been unacceptable. Instead of flying the day before when there would still be options, they decided to push it and assume that they could land the plane at Smolensk. Unfortunately, that didn't work out.

This kind of thing happens all the time. It's bad planning, and every year it kills plenty of rich and powerful people who don't respect the weather.
convex   
11 Apr 2010
News / Polish President Lech Kaczynski and gov officials die in a plane crash in Russia [686]

Putin blaming it all on pilot just doesn’t sound right. First they stated that pilot tried to land three times and on the fourth it crashed, sounds fishy, I’m sure that presidents pilot was professional and couldn’t made the same mistake four times.

It's called poor visibility and bad planning.
convex   
10 Apr 2010
News / Polish President Lech Kaczynski and gov officials die in a plane crash in Russia [686]

Its not that hard to clip a tree if you are on the wrong glide path , which it seems he might have been....You only need to be slighty below the glide path , and the result is you are fifty feet to low approaching the end of the runway , thats more than enough to make contact with a tree top , especially in thick fog when you can see nothing at all...

There is no precision approach available at that airport. They were eye balling it.

Circling 4 times is odd. That really doesn't happen often. Also, an experienced pilot would be in regular contact with those on the ground in the event of uncertainty of landing. This will be the info that I'll be looking for.

No tower either. ATC advised diverting, flight crew decided to attempt a landing despite being illegal.

There were no options once they took off from Warsaw this morning. It was either land in Smolensk, or miss the ceremony. There's your problem.
convex   
10 Apr 2010
News / Polish President Lech Kaczynski and gov officials die in a plane crash in Russia [686]

Why would they put all of their leaders on one plane? A plane known to be dangerous as well.

Well, they didn't for one. The only thing that makes this odd compared to normal VVIP flights was the number of senators and members of the Sejm that were on board.

There are a few pictures of Bush, Rumsfeld, Rice, and Gen Meyers all 35k ft over the ground.

you hear what sakashvili says? "SOmething real EVIL has happened today, REALLY evil"

No one cares what Saakashvili says anymore. This will feed conspiracy theories for a while, won't start a war.
convex   
10 Apr 2010
News / Polish President Lech Kaczynski and gov officials die in a plane crash in Russia [686]

You site one example and call it a policy?

Policy was a bad way to put it, you're right. Maybe culture would be a better term.

Looking at the weather, apparently they've had heavy fog every morning for a while now. This was one of those "we have to be there" flights, leaving the previous evening might have been a better option. At least that would have given an option. They knew about this in advance, it wasn't an emergency flight. Seems like a tragic end to a badly planned flight :(

Why was he given clearance to land when there was such a low ceiling and no ILS? The pilot of an approaching aircraft is in charge of clearing himself to land? What do you think?

There's no tower at UUBS. Moscow ATC advised diverting to UMMS or UUEE.
convex   
10 Apr 2010
News / Polish President Lech Kaczynski and gov officials die in a plane crash in Russia [686]

Check out the flight in 2008 to Tblisi. There is obviously a problem with safety vs. completing the mission. In this case, completing the mission was more important. They attempted 4 (!) approaches when the weather was below minimums.

So, what would you call that? It seems to me that there was a culture of erring on the side of completing the mission vs. safety, what do you think?

I'm quite ok, thanks.