Polish final report on Smoleńsk aircrash

Sweet pie do not open your mouth about things you have no clue about.


Are those pictures bringing anything new or significant about the Smolensk Crash? If not what gives?


Russians?Nay, rather the clique of ex-KGB officers(ex - ha!) who are ruling Russia now.

Actually, yes. The state of the President's body silences the conspiracy theories about the victims being shot or otherwise and makes it clear that there was a crash.

WP - you're right, those pictures are horrific.

This is simply not true. It is rubbish that mainstream media feed people, that only a select minority think this crash was dodgy. Truth is a lot of people are not, if not saying it was intentional, getting very suspicious.


Different types of people. Some laugh while others than got genuine concern.


Well if it was planned then that was the intention. Jarek Kaczynski was also expected to be on this plane.


No not really. The state of one or a few bodies does not prove that none of the victims were shot.


No but that it is the point of them being published. The point is to be provocative.

A lot of people? It's mentioned on stuff like David Icke forums, which tells you how credible the whole thing is.

Why not stick to the facts and hammer the relevant authorities for -

a) allowing a flight to a disused airport
b) the utter crap that was the VIP transport division of the Polish Air Force
c) allowing all those people to attend on the same plane

etc?

Oh, that's right... because people won't be encouraged by details such as "not qualified to fly the plane" because it implies that the Poles were at fault.


I think it's notable that all the figures show people with "genuine concern" to be among the uneducated in Polish society.


Hence his claims of assassination - because he has a massive guilt trip about the whole thing. That much is obvious.


I think the photographs speak for themselves - it was a horrid, horrid accident.


I think you need to learn more about Russia, to be honest. It's a country that has (except, perhaps, during Stalinism) never really been under central control - they are notoriously incompetent and useless. The publication of these photographs just proves that they are absolutely useless at even following basic procedures such as not allowing anyone but official photographers to have cameras on the crash site. It might be a provocation, but it's likely to be a provocation by some fringe idiot who just wants to cause pain and misery because he can.

I just wish for the sake of the dead that they would let them rest in peace.

Strange that you haven't mentioned the true story behind Anna Walentynowicz's relationship with her family in the years before her death, though. It's all coming out now - she was ignored by her family, and her son had little to do with her before her death. It also seems that he misidentified her.

I have just discovered that we have friends who lost their father in Smolensk. It is actually my daughter's close friends grandfather. We have done a few things together socially but since our kids have switched schools we really only see each other in the summer.

We had no idea.
He is now in the media asking people to stop publishing the photos. He had to identify his fathers body- he doesn't need to see it again and again.

The Russians implied that Poland was at fault since the very beginning. It has since been revealed that some of the details in Mak were quite simply, false, to make Poland look bad [General Błasik being there and being drunk for instance, was basically a lie]. If anyone here is not happy to take responsibility it is the Russians. I am not saying that Poland was totally not at fault [if it was an accident] but the Russians practically put the whole blame on them and tried to make them look incompetent.


Well you can call some of the experts who have said that the MAK theory of what happened is illogical and the different professors in the field and members of PiS who have spent a lot of time looking in to it, uneducated, but that is not true.


What you mean his feels guilty for not flying on the plane? Or perhaps he should have organized it better, but wait, he didn't organize it did he?


I don't see how photographs or battered bodies show that it was an accident. First of all, the Russians spent a lot of time with bodies first and as far as I know, some were cremated with no knowledge of it from others till it was too late. The go ahead for this was not given either. Plus some bodies were literally in pieces, that seems more likely to happen from an explosion than from a crash. If something crashes you expect to find some mangled bodies, not bodies in 15 different pieces.

Poland and Poles were at fault.


Going below cleared minimums for the plane and the pilot and the conditions while ignoring repeated "terrain ahead!" warnings and running the engines at way below the required minimum is, frankly, incompetent.


Seen the results of many 100g crashes have you?

The website dont work. Do you know what the new website address is?

I would say Russians were more at fault.


You are basing this post on a false report and many of the supposed 'facts' in that report were proven wrong since. Not your fault I suppose, you were fed this crap just like most other people in Poland were.

Were Russians flying the plane? Nope. End of story. Russian air traffic control told, as it confirmed by Polish pilots who had recently landed, that there were no conditions for landing at Smolensk at that time.


Am I really? What was the cleared minimum for that particular plane? What was the cleared minimum for that particular pilot? What was the cleared minimum for that particular moment? Answer to all questions: higher than the height the plane went down to.

I see that you are one of those people who thinks that both the cockpit voice recorder and the flight data recorder have both been altered (as those evidence the fact that below cleared minimums for the plane and the pilot and the conditions while ignoring repeated "terrain ahead!" warnings and running the engines at way below the required minimum. But, even if your bizarre conspiracy theory had any truth in it at all, which it of course does not, the fact still remains that the Polish crew went below cleared minimums for the plane and the pilot and the conditions. Doing that is incompetent, because it kills people, as this flight showed.

You mean despite the Poles putting unqualified pilots in the plane, despite the Poles not checking the airport properly, despite the Poles allowing a VIP flight to a decommissioned airport with rudimentary landing guidance systems (let's be honest, PAR+2NDB approaches are really not much use when carrying around the President), despite the Poles breaking the Tupolev rulebook, despite the training being thoroughly inadequate... Russia is still more at fault? Really?


No WP, you're wrong. We aren't using the MAK report, we're using the Polish report. And the Polish report makes it crystal clear that the plane went below 130m (which is all the Tupolev can go to) without clearance to land and without visually sighting the runway. I'll make it simple : The Tupolev-154M when landing in such conditions (including the absence of ILS) must see the runway at 100m or abort the landing. But - due to the Tupolev 154M being known to "drop" 30m before starting to climb, in reality, they must spot the runway at 130m or go around. Go around means pull up and return the holding circle.

Now listen to the transcript. Did they make any attempt to go around at 130m? The call was made far too late - and even then, by the time they made the call, the plane was doomed. There is a very well known syndrome called "get-it-there-itis" in which many crashes have happened - this was sadly just yet another example.


He was certainly there, in contrary to the "sterile cockpit" rules of aviation. Was that Russia's fault, too?


The Polish report and consequences make it very clear that the PAF were incompetent.


Why is it that they've suddenly gone silent if they know the truth? It seems really strange - if they thought that their work had merit, surely they wouldn't abandon it all of a sudden?

The MAK theory is - in my view - irrelevant. The Polish report is far more technical and includes far more real world tests - personally, the MAK test is only interesting for the psychological stuff that the Poles wouldn't dare mention.


No, I mean he feels guilty for putting his brother on a trip that was needless.


In accordance with the wishes of the families, no doubt.


I was reading a great deal about this subject, and the simplest way to put it is -

If you hit a brick wall at 200mph, you're going to be a mess too. Seatbelts will cease to be of much use at that point, and the massive amount of g-force is quite enough to tear limbs apart. Don't forget that the plane hit upside down at that speed - the wreckage alone tells you that it must have been a devastating accident. Certainly quite enough to tear bodies apart.

But at the end of the day, if they were so certain that it was an explosion, why has Macierewicz been silenced recently? Why would they silence him if he was correct?

The only thing that the Russians can be blamed for is allowing the Poles to use the airport in the first place. But if they hadn't, the Polish right-wing press would be screaming RUSSIA INSULTS POLAND OVER AIRPORT CLOSURE and suchlike.

So what? You think if a plane goes down it can only be the fault of the pilot? You don't have much of an imagination do you?


I think you have a hatred for Poland for whatever reason. I think this is 'Katyn 2' and just like the original Katyn, we will probably only find out the truth in about, oh, say, 70 years time or so. Until then we have to listen to lots of people, including mainstream media, tell us it is all conspiracy theories.


Unqualifed? In what way unqualified? Had they never been pilots on a plane before?


Well then you might as well be using MAK since a government run report with supposedly 'neutral' experts is not much short of a farce.


Did you ever think that this might be because they thought they were somewhere else to where they were and when they were told there was terrain ahead, it was too late to do anything even when they pulled up? I doubt that someone flying a plane with almost no visibility would be ignoring commands not to land and just going for it.


Well you see we must be getting our information from completely different sources because I was reading that he was not in the cockpit.


Like I said a Polish report where the only way to shut this case up is to make the Polish side look incompetent. If it points the finger at Russians, then it has to deal with them, and PO does not want problems with the Russians right now.


Nothing has been abandoned. They still talk about it a lot, the mainstream media just does not show any of this [although you might catch something on TVP info every now and then].


I am not so sure it was. By the way what do you have to say about items of victims not being given back to families or bodies having dirt sown in to them? No suspicion or obvious disrespect there?


He has not been silenced. You are just looking at the wrong media. He still has plenty to say and is still investigating with experts. He just does not get any opportunities to speak about this on mainstream TV although he was invited to TVP info not long ago where he had a lot to say on the issue.


The key is where have you been reading a great deal about the subject? Gazeta Wyborcza? Other government friendly anti PiS publications? Different media and books say different stuff don't they.

Given that the CVR makes it clear that they were planning to go to minimums to have a look and all evidence shows absolutely nothing wrong with the plane to the 130m mark - in this case, its pretty obvious that it's pilot error. CFIT is the cause of what, around 33% of crashes?


Why do you insist on spreading pain for the families? There are certainly plenty of families who have publicly said that they wish that people would just shut up and stop spreading conspiracy theories.


Aviation works in the same way as driving a lorry is these days - you require constant professional training and checks for your licence to be valid. No training = unqualified. And when you look at the experience of some of those in the cockpit and their lack of time in the TU-154M, you realise that the PAF really did make a total mess of things. Just like in Mirosławiec.


Careful, WP. The report was commissioned by the legal Polish government and conducted by people who know their stuff.


All this stuff about "flying somewhere else to where they were" is not borne out by the evidence. In those conditions, it was totally and perfectly legal to fly down to 130m to "have a look". If they spotted the runway - great - they could land. But if they didn't, they were obliged to go around while a decision was made as to what to do next.

They were almost certainly (as the CVR suggests) planning to have a look to see if they could spot the runway. It would certainly be easier to tell the powers that be that they couldn't land if they already had had a look - rather than not attempting a landing full stop. While PAR+2NDB approaches aren't particularly good for such planes, it would still be enough to get them in a position where they might have been able to spot the runway. If they had managed to spot the runway at that point - then they would've had a chance at making the landing.

And as I keep saying - if they had pulled up at 130m, they would have been safe. It was really a matter of seconds between "safe" and "doomed". In fact, one theory is that the Captain pressed a button to execute an automatic go-around - except that button only worked when using an ILS approach. If you think about the time spent to realise that the button wasn't working and to make a different plan, it might already have been too late. As for why he made such a mistake - his experience (as listed in the Polish report) was that he was mainly flying to main, commercial airports. Easy mistake to make.


He certainly was there and reading out the height readings.


The report pointed quite a few fingers at the Russians. I'm not sure why you seem to think that it doesn't - have you read it? The stuff about the communication between the tower and Moscow makes very interesting reading.


They have gone rather quiet recently about it - ever since Kaczynski changed tactics. We used to hear Kaczynski bring it up endlessly - now he's quiet. Same with others - Macierewicz would always be ranting about it somewhere, but now, all quiet.


I think you need to remember that Poles were involved too - and Poles are hardly blameless when it comes to accident victims in the past! Either way, it sounds like typical Russian incompetence if it's true. As for the cremation - you really shouldn't speculate like that.


Why would they suddenly stop talking about it when he's been talking about it for months all over the mainstream media? The guy has been silenced by his own party, no matter what you say - the electorate does not like to hear about Smolensk.


No, I was reading accident reports from different plane crashes. Nothing to do with PiS, PO, Gazeta Wyborcza or anyone in Poland.

Accidents are brutal. Someone being slammed at 200mph upside down into a chair is going to lose limbs, there's no doubt about that.

answers.yahoo/question/index?qid=20070801181103AAk36fY

take a read here - sure, it's Yahoo Answers, but the stuff is the same idea.

And read this -
popularmechanics.com/technology/aviation/crashes/Smolensk-Plane-Crash-Error
- the article isn't quite factually correct as the investigations revealed what really happened, but the stuff about what causes plane crashes is.


What makes you think that a unqualified pilot under immense stress (particularly with his boss in the cockpit) wouldn't crack under such pressure, especially as he had some history with the President?

WP - ask yourself one question - why couldn't it be an accident? The institutional failures within the PAF were well known - Mirosławiec was almost identical, particularly with the loss of spatial awareness.

And more to the point - you seem convinced that they've been altering the evidence. Have you considered that perhaps the political opposition (led by a man who is well known to believe that Tusk stole the Government from him) is capable of doing that, too? Perhaps they might want to alter the evidence for political motives? They certainly have plenty to gain by convincing people that the Polish government is responsible.

Really? Are you sure that you can exclude foul play based only on pictures?I think it is tad more complicated than that.


To be honest after refusing to return wreak of the plane and the black box all other stuff is just desert.I guess general public maybe viewing things from a different angle.

You are right WP to some extend. Russian policy is to keep government in Poland weak. Those manipulation are just that. That only confirms that Tusk is Iii rd player, because he give all necessary tools to Russians to do which him what they please. He should go and pronto!


Why? Go back and read about stimulation which hasn't been as yet proved wrong by other scientist t in the field. why are you repeating rubbish, for your own amusement? shame on you.

Combined with all the other heavy evidence in favour of an accident (not least - numerous things being done wrong before the flight even took off) - the state of the bodies does lend credence to the "bad accident" hypothesis.


I long ago came to the conclusion that the Polish themselves haven't requested the return of the plane. It would cause too much trouble and open up too much division if it was in Poland. Can't you imagine the bitter fighting over the wreck if it was in Poland?


Do you think Russia cares so much about Poland as to have a policy in place? Let's not forget that Poland is a member of NATO and the EU - which makes it pretty powerful, all things considered.


The simulation which was based on factually incorrect data? It was already disproved, not least because they couldn't actually find a scientist with relevant knowledge.

The fact that you're all wasting so much energy on trying to prove that there was an explosion or foul play totally distract from the real causes of the accident.

Data from MAK report, the same report you claim to have explained everything sufficiently.


There is no other have evidence in favor of anything other than compilations from the black box courtesy of Russian spec operations agency.


If that i so(which I doubt) than Tusk is even bigger looser then /i though.


There is no doubt about that. Russia cares about Poland one way of the other.
Soviet Russia cared enough for British working class to subsidize " The Guardian". I think Russia cares tad more about Poland. Don't be jealous I'm sure she cares about Sottish oil fields too.


Well, surprise for you - it wasn't disproved. Nobody probed him wrong so they claim that the data was wrong. If the data was wrong so was MAK report, because data has been taken from that report.


Why do you waste so much of your energy to force accident as the cause of the crash? Why do you claim contrary to facts that I waste my energy here to prove something which I cannot prove. In fact I do not claim that it wasn't an accidence. I just say as it is. Without physical evidence (withheld by Russian) nobody can prove anything. All what I'm doing is disproving illegitimate and silly claims made by others in this thread.

Except you've forgotten that the Poles had their own, custom made military recorder that the Russians couldn't decode as it was a specialist Polish piece of equipment.


Why? It's almost certain that it would be fought over bitterly, probably accompanied by mass protests at the storage location and would represent another 'cross'.


But why would Russia care? The only care that Russia would have is that Poland is a large NATO country on her doorstep. Certainly, Kaczynski was enough of a no-name President to be all but a lame duck in their eyes.


And twisted to suit their agenda. I repeat - they had to get a professor who wasn't even an expert in the area of which he spoke about.


Because I think it's insulting to the dead to keep on mentioning all these conspiracy theories.

With 3/4ths of GA crashes in the US caused by pilot error - what makes you think that (especially after Mirosławiec) that the PAF are any better?

It must be said - most of the conspiracy theory websites out there fail to even get basic facts right. I've read on so many of them that "the plane was equipped with an ILS that would take the plane to the edge of the runway" - totally failing to even understand that there was no ILS at Smolensk-North.

That just made my day!

So we should not try to find out why they died and take the russians for their word? just like Katyn?

This made my day far more - it must be said - most of the conspiracy theory websites out there fail to even get basic facts right. I've read on so many of them that "the plane was equipped with an ILS that would take the plane to the edge of the runway" - totally failing to even understand that there was no ILS at Smolensk-North.

But let's have some fun, shall we? This is a direct quote from Macierewicz -


doomedsoldiers.com/polish-tu-154-crash-russia.html

Except, dear Antoni... there are rules surrounding the PAR+2NDB approach, and one of those rules is that the plane cannot go below 100m. It doesn't matter one bit about what the Russian controllers said - the final, ultimate authority in aviation lies with the Captain - particularly as the controllers cannot be expected to know the minimums for every single plane. They are different from plane to plane - and ATC is always, always only advisory.

If the leader of the opposition "investigation" cannot even get basic facts right, what hope is there for their investigation to be in any way credible?


We are finding out. The Polish civil investigation is complete and we're awaiting the Polish military investigation.

Generally speaking, when you go below your minimums, you tend to crash in planes.

Delphiandomine,you have to admit that considering why they were going and where they went ;if any story had the ingredients of a conspiracy theory this one sure does;on the face at least.Not to say that I think one way or the other on the issue as I really don't know enough about it.What a coincidence though.

We already know why they died: the Polish pilots went below all their minimum cleared heights and put the plane into the ground.

Generally speaking, people don't shot 20,000 people in the forest or gas 6 milj people or fly a plane into a skyscraper right?

Oh, without a doubt. It was quite possibly the worst possible coincidence.


Incredibly so. But sadly - one that was always going to end up happening given the culture of the PAF - particularly in terms of how many rules they broke.

It's worth reading the official Polish report into the crash. Don't bother with the opposition "reports" - they're full of holes that are obvious to anyone with an interest in aviation. The leader of their commission, Macierewicz, repeatedly (and deliberately) fails to mention relevant information.


Except all of those things had a political motive. What use would killing a lame duck President be who was going to lose badly in the Presidential election?

Could have something to do with the politics maybe?

And please skip the "duck" thing. Not even fun to be honest.

But again - what would be the point? Wouldn't it be much better to simply sit back and watch as the voters threw him out of office? PiS were doing terribly at that point - they were down to the 20's in the opinion polls and Lech was facing becoming the first ever President in the 3rd Republic to lose in the first round. All Russia had to do was sit back and wait.

Instead, if they did what you suggest, they managed to raise awareness all over the world for what happened in Katyn Forest. Look at the news reports from those days - almost every single report mentions how they were on their way to a killing site of Poles by the Soviets. Not exactly what Russia wants, eh?

Still, if Macierewicz can't even get his facts straight...

The president was not the only one dying in that crash.

You should also take into consideration that the twins were very anti-russian.

Because at the same time he has delivered into Russian hands unending tools which can be used as weapon against him and his political camp.Blunder and stupidity unless he has something really serious to hide.

What fight? Parliamentary Commission and trusted specialist and the issue is solved.


And she wants that country to be as weak as possible, what is so difficult to understand?


You are wrong! He formulated Polish eastern policy which resulted in his support of Georgia in their war with Russia. Georgia is still an independent country and Russia and especially KGB never forgets.


Unless you are prepared to present your evidence in the court of law I would advice against slanderous accusations against certain people.


Are you? I think that unless somebody prove that his calculations are wrong, you shouldn't be so stubborn and unreasonable as to possibility that his calculation could be right.


Come on delph! I know you on the PF over three years and you never struck me as particularly sensitive individual let alone that you would care about feeling of some strangers. That is totally false premise in my eyes.If anything you lack empathy.

Lets assume for the sake of our debate that you telling the truth, don't you think that the fact that members of those families in their own right do not believe in the official explanation and are asking for full inquiry and investigations to be held?


I wouldn't know I believe you to be an expert on those. I'm only asking questions and I have no answers. Nevertheless your all-ready answers to all doubts and one sided approach is simply not on.

Actually he was explaining not too long ago that they did ask for the plane wreckage back but due to some rule, the Russians want to keep it with them [how convenient]. Why did they destroy it so quickly anyway? You know if they did have nothing to hide and it was not planned, why are they so foolish as to make it look like they have something to hide?


And you speak of respect for the dead and their families, yet you use language like this even after his death.


There are more families who are unhappy with the way they were treated in Russia, the way they were treated by the Polish government and they want a more thorough investigation. This idea [that Tusk keeps repeating] that talking about it is upsetting the families is made up. Truth is most of them want to the matter to be discussed and do not believe that the issue is yet solved. It is important to them, considering how tragic it was, not to leave it and forget all the strange and unacceptable incidents that have happened since the crash, not to mention the crash itself.

Polish Foreign Minister is getting impatient. He called on a European Union foreign minister to help Poland retrieve the plane wreckage from Russians.

Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski said Monday he asked EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton to formally raise the issue with Russia next week, at an EU-Russia summit in Brussels, concerning the return of the wreckage of the plane that crashed in Russia in 2010, killing President Lech Kaczynski and 95 others.

Since then Russia has failed to return the wreckage. Sikorski said he raised the issue last week with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov but did not get any information from him on when the wreckage might be returned.

Russian Foreign Minister met Sikorski and promised the return but didn`t set any dates:

myfoxphilly.com/story/20360148/russia-says-polish-crash-wreckage-to-be-returned

Poland plane wreck

You know, I was watching a programme called Air Crash Investigation or something like that about the Milan air crash of 2001 the other day.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linate_Airport_disaster

Seeing as it was an SAS plane, the Swedes automatically sent their investigators immediately and they liaised closely with the Italian air crash investigators. Unfortunately, the Italian police were in charge and cocked things up terribly, but the joint investigation team with dogged determination got to the inconvenient truth in the end. Compare with Smolensk.