Polish final report on Smoleńsk aircrash

Can you explain to us why they even attempted the approach, given that the approach flown required 1200m of visibility - after being told by a couple of different sources that visibility was 400m and falling?

Of course, the answer is simple - no guts, no glory. The Captain was going to get it from his bosses if he didn't attempt a landing - that much is obvious, given the PAF culture and attitude towards safety/training.


The Poles have their own 'black box' which the Russians had no idea about - it was dealt with in Warsaw, because the piece of kit was specialist Polish equipment. I've heard and seen nothing which suggests that the Russians even knew what it was, let alone how to deal with it.

Convex, the conditions deteriorated rapidly after that. The Yak pilot recommended that they try once and then go around. That was their green light.

So your bet, delph, is that they went against probability and hoped they wouldn't hit a tree? They were so close to escaping but that one tree screwed them. Bravado sometimes pays off but it often doesn't.

The same reason that pilots knowingly bust minimums all the time, they wanted to get down. Do you think an exchange like this might add pressure to land?



I didn't read that in the report.

Now in all seriousness, who here actually took the time to read either the Russian or Polish report?


They were fully within their right to attempt an approach. I would have.


Those weren't suitable conditions for landing, not even close.

Monia and I read the Polish one.

But you don't believe it, or? There are lots of questions being asked which would have been answered by reading the report.


I think a combination of failure to use the barometric altimeter, over reliance on advisory information, and having the boss in the cockpit killed them.

I tend to follow it but I think international relations might have 'softened' some of the veracity of it.

I don't buy the barometric altimeter idea. It is FAAAAR too amateurish a mistake to make without other factors being present.

They were within their rights to protect the lives of theirs and the crew by refusing Blasik. Besides, Blasik was good friends with Protasiuk. Katana, or whatever his name was, could have been a problem.

Based on the experience of the crew, it would seem that they were used to flying approaches which relied on decision height and not decision altitude. Combine that with the fact that the airport wasn't in the DB and gave warnings which caused the Captain the set standard pressure to shut it up...well, not good, not good. Simple fact is, if he would have been using the baro altimeter like he was supposed to, they'd probably still be alive, even after knowingly busting minimums (as they did).

Is this "no guts, no glory" an explanation to why they went down the minimum? Is this "no guts, no glory" explanation recorded as data somewhere, in a blackbox, greenbox, whatever?

Just after the accident last year without any data yet, I too commented similarly, saying "pilot probably was forced to land by the president in the plane." It was quite possible that pilot had no chance; either he should have tried to land down or he should have lost his job if he didn't do that, and perhaps, more trouble. However, pressure of president on pilot isn't enough explanation, might be just extra irrelevant reasoning that may seem to everybody it was that reason only that pilot had to go down minimum. There are other questions, for ex, that president pressured on electronic circuits too, computer power too? etc etc.


Times. At somewhere, it says fog started to appear slowly at 00:10.
Then, Yak crew landed at 05:17 and the weather was not "asked" by controller in Warsaw. After about half an hour, he "asked"(?) weather condition in Smolensk. (If there was heavy fog, Yak crew should have informed Warsaw without being asked.) At around 05:50, talk/dialog about the weather between Warsaw and Yak crew happens. and Warsaw controller contacts Warsaw meteorology. But, there is no talk between Tu-154 and Warsaw about weather between 05:50 and 06:14/17. After 06:00, likely around 06:15, there is communication between Tu-154 and Minsk about the weather. This late communication isn't meaningful anyway. If we follow Warsaw's handling way about weather, then, it means there was no fog till 06:00 or 06:10.. Then, suddenly, we hear inside from airplane "fog just appears now", at 06:26 as you mentioned about. Then, there was a minute or two only to decide.. Quick decision should have been made.. "pull-up" command from smolensk controller was probably late or was just to fill the gap.. Main issue here isn't their decision in short time, it is "why there is an hour delay in becoming sure about the fog.."

The Russians were still going through their authority channels as to who was going so spray the fog ;) ;)

Mist turned into fog, it's only a difference in visibility. Visibility deteriorated even worse and it was reported by Minsk and then also later at the airfield.

Artificial fog is possible. Real fog too might be there, possible. In the case of real fog, controllers in Warsaw and Yak crew should be questioned.. It is illogical to be sure about a heavy fog for an hour or more. Except 96 people, perhaps, everybody at control points knew the fog an hour ago or two. Heavy fog it is.. It takes an hour or two to occur naturally.

Whether it was artifical or natural, communications about the weather between people and stations are not normal, considering time differences/delays.

What wasn't normal? Mist/Fog was reported the entire time. I've seen it go from legal to fogged in over the time it takes to drink a cup of coffee. The crew had information about fog at least half an hour before the approach. They had current weather when they started the approach and themselves agreed that it was unsafe for landing.

I read somewhere (in one of Monia's post or on the net) that says fog started at around 00:10 in Smolensk. If this is true, then, it contradicts. However, it is possible that there was no fog till morning and mist might turn into fog. It happens usually in the mornings with the sunlights, heat.. But, this process takes more than hour and it is enough for met stations to know the fog. And, about half an hour, Yak crew was there. If they didn't see heavy fog, fog started to appear after 06:00, 06:10.. then, we hear "we just entered fog now" at 06:26.. Info chaos between Tu-154 probably then as people in the airplane weren't informed about the fog and since they didn't come up the probability of mist turning into fog, distrust by decision makers in the airplane to met stations and controllers happened. Perhaps, they thought that even if they pulled up, airplane would explode, by bombs inside airplane with remote controller and they tried their little chance, land dawn.. In this soft-crash, we can assume that at least 1-5% of people could survive.. Likely, it happened - and, the shot fire sounds heard in the video is about that..

Minsk reported fog to the crew over half an hour before the approach. The only difference between mist and fog is visibility, any number of atmospheric changes could cause visibility to decrease by 500m very quickly. It didn't go from being bright and sunny to foggy, temperature/dew point spread was between 1 and then at dew point for quite a bit of the morning.


They came down fast and hard.

From the report:


I didn't hear gunshots in the video, but I'm not an expert in grainy camera phone videography.

Weather is reported entire time. As long as it is in allowable visibility limit, fog is usually not reported. This is a heavy fog, not light fog which shortens visibility distance to 80? m. Mist can't turn into heavy fog in an half an hour. And, there is no heavy fog reported before 06:00.

Visibility was reported at 400m, not 80. "Mist" can turn into "Fog" in a matter of seconds. It's simply a change in visibility. If the temperature changes and the dew point remains the same, mist or fog will form. It's not an uncommon thing...

youtube.com/watch?v=OheQmuEMTpw&feature=fvwrel
TMC-65, what a convenient tool ;) ;)

Aviation meteorology on April 10: (got it from a forum - no reference is needed as it is likely official met data.)

1:00 AM 6 °C -0 °C 52% 1025 hPa 10 kilometers SE 7.2 km/h /
4:00 AM 3 °C -0 °C 72% 1025 hPa 10 kilometers SE 7.2 km/h /
7:00 AM 0 °C -1 °C 89% 1025 hPa 4 kilometers ESE 7.2 km/h / Mist
10:00 AM 1 °C 1 °C 98% 1026 hPa 0.5 kilometers SE 10.8 km/h / Heavy Fog
1:00 PM 3 °C 2 °C 94% 1025 hPa 4 kilometers East 14.4 km/h / Mist

Heavy, thick fog was at 10:00 AM, much later. Also, it is only 500 m. 500 m is enough for soft crash.. Somewhere, it says 80 m. Which is true?

You say "fast and hard" - Of course, any airplane crash will be hard - but, how hard? In 500 m visibility, landing at an airport can't be that hard. People in the airplane knowing the risk of landing would be taking some small protections for their lifes and probability of some people surviving from such softer hard crash is 1-5%. It is not a bomb, suddenly exploding..

*sigh* are we really going back to fog machines and executions?

In that case, I will stick by the "aliens took over the bodies of the crew and caused them to descend below their minimums" as my entry.

Enjoy...

Yes, but, all points in the air mass at smolensk isn't at the same temperature. For heavy fog, a big mass of air, mist in it, need more than an hour to evaporate. Heavy fog doesn't occur suddenly, it takes more than hour due to that point temperatures at every point of air isn't same.

It was a joke although some aren't treating it as such amongst right-wing elements in Poland. It's much more like steam to me, not fog.

This data I got from a forum, claimed to be taken from an aviation site, is true?

Smolensk on April 10, 2010:
1:00 AM 6 °C -0 °C 52% 1025 hPa 10 kilometers SE 7.2 km/h /
4:00 AM 3 °C -0 °C 72% 1025 hPa 10 kilometers SE 7.2 km/h /
7:00 AM 0 °C -1 °C 89% 1025 hPa 4 kilometers ESE 7.2 km/h / Mist
10:00 AM 1 °C 1 °C 98% 1026 hPa 0.5 kilometers SE 10.8 km/h / Heavy Fog
1:00 PM 3 °C 2 °C 94% 1025 hPa 4 kilometers East 14.4 km/h / Mist

Then, heavy fog occured later after the crush became another reason.

10am local, 7 zulu which is what the transcripts are given in.

here it is from avherald:

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

The two relevant ones are bold.


They didn't know they were going to hit the ground. 400m of visibility is nothing when you're travelling at 150 knots. 2-3 seconds max to avoid something. Regarding survivability, posted a couple of messages above on it from the report.

Which makes guiding them in all the more important :)

The controller was providing advisory information. It was a non-precision approach, a pair of NDBs. It was not a radar approach. A radar approach wasn't available in Smolensk...

So, Smolensk weather on April 10, 2010 between at Polish times, 5 and 11 AM:

5:00 AM - Poland time (corresponds to 7 AM Smolensk time - and 04 AM London time) -- Mist with 4 km visibility

6:41 AM - Poland time (corresponds to 8:41 AM Smolensk time - and 05:41 AM London time) -- Heavy fog with 400 m visibility) - Crash happend at this time..

8:00 AM - Poland time (corresponds to 10 AM Smolensk time - and 07 AM London time) -- Heavy fog with 500 m visibility

11:00 AM - Poland time (corresponds to 1 PM Smolensk time - and 10 AM London time) -- Mist 4 km visibility

----

We don't know at what time the minimum visibility was. With an interpolation in this weather data based on time, it is likely between 05:30 and 07:30 Polish times. I suppose minimum visibility was before 06:41, maybe, it was 200 m then and it is logical due to sunlights effect (before 8:41 smolensk time.) So, fog was heavier before 6:41, maybe, it was around 5:30- 6 AM when Yak was on Smolensk airport..

Between 6:41 and 8 AM, visibility change is 100 meters only. Since outside effects such as storms etc didn't exist there, it was a kind of stagnant or laminer flow, or slow process, with no sudden changes. So, change in moist/fog is more or less linear change except at around critical point of phase change which likely took a minute or two. So, assuming minimum visibility 400 m was at 6:41, then, at 5:41, visibility was again 500 m.. Again, 5:41 was the time when Yak was at Smolensk airport.. Except those critical minute or two, change in the weather took at least 2-3 hours, between 5 and 8-9 AM polish time. One hour of this change, which was enough to forecast coming fog was before crash time.

So, Yak definitely knew it was heavy fog and Yak crew should have informed urgently.. But, we don't hear anything, any such urgent communication between Yak crew and Warsaw controller..

Ever tried to drive a car in 500m visibility at a speed in excess of 200km/h? That's not easy, let alone flying a plane.


Given that the plane landed upside down while travelling at over 200km/h, it's going to hurt. Badly.


But they couldn't, because it would be obvious to Warsaw that they had illegally landed.


Have a look on youtube for PAR approaches. This certainly wasn't one.


What?

Did airplane hit the ground on its nose? No. It hit trees even and those trees hitting the wing can be seen like a break, slowing the speed. It is not a hard, sudden impact like hitting its nose into the ground. And, people in the plane were aware of that it was risky landing due to the fog. So, they probably were taking some small safety cautions inside the plane before touching the ground. This cautions can increase survival ration at least 1% at this softer hard crash.. So, at least, one person or two were expected to survive.


Yak couldn't inform about the fog in Smolensk to Warsaw controller, cause Yak knew landing of Tu-154 was illegal, violating technical rules? and they couldn't say this not to make it clear to everyone that their president was doing wrong by landing decision? You mean this? Then, it means Yak crew knew their decision of people inside the plane in advance, an hour ago, that Tu-154 would be landing.. Then, why are we discussing about debates/discussions occured in the airplane in last 30 minutes? Okay, president probably was determined to land on the airport, but, he might not be thinking the fog would be so heavy. President's determination for landing has nothing to do with communication between Yak and Warsaw controller. Yak crew key person there saw himself as president and he made the decision that could be against president Lech? This is not different than Russians' not taking serious safety cautions at Smolensk airport. That's why we see an irrelevant person taking video captures of crash just after the crash?

Merged: The 2010 Polish Air Force Tu-154 crash status report/November 2011

The 2010 Polish Air Force Tu-154 crash status report/November 2011

This document entitled „Smolensk Crash Status Report” was prepared by Esq (Esquire) Maria Szonert-Biniendę with the cooperation of experts in support of the Association of Families of Smolensk Plane Crash „Katyn2010″.

Version with automatic transition to the chapter table of contents is at the link below.

(www) ndb2010.files.wordpress.com/2011/11/status-report-on-smolensk-crash181 1-11.pdf

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(www) .facebook.com/pages/The-2010-Polish-Air-Force-Tu-154-Crash-Status-Repo rt/220383771364767?sk=wall

Any summary of the content, Konrad?