The plane was cleared below 100m relative to the terrain they were directly over and not ground level.
Convex will confirm this one way or another, but I'm pretty certain that if you are cleared to a certain height, it's to the height above the runway (so called barometric height - using a barometric altimeter). Using a clearance based on a radar altimeter wouldn't make any sense whatsoever - terrain around airports is never completely flat. Look at Aberdeen Airport - if they were cleared to 100m using radar, they could never get the plane down after it passes over the golf course in Northfield because they would be far too high.
Their rate of descent was also not made perfectly clear to them.
The autopilot was set, so they knew their rate of descent perfectly fine. No surprises there.
Many sources I've heard and read have said that the Russian ATC were negligent in the performance of their duties.
How many of these people have ever even been inside an ATC tower, let alone one as poorly equipped as Smolensk-North was?
That's an interesting article.
It's from a fringe publication not known for publishing accurate articles.
The article is correct that there are too many inconsistencies with the reports of this tragedy to say that it can all be simplistically explained as because of "pilot error". Like the article said, the Russian transcripts could well be counterfeited.
If the Russian transcripts are fake, then the Polish investigators are lying. Personally, I trust the investigators more than I trust fringe loony publications. You might choose not to - but you should think about who these newspapers are trying to sell their publications to.
Reports are always inconsistent - after any disaster, the first hours always have a mess of information and people simply report what they're told. Look at the 7/7 bombings in London - it was initially believed that there was some sort of major power failure which caused some accidents on the underground. In fact, only until the bus was blown up was it becoming clear that it was a terrorist attack.
That's why we have investigators.
According to top German experts, they think there was definitely foul play that went on. They report that the plane was given false data from the Smolensk airport. At least by the airport navigation signals that went out to the arriving plane.
I'm curious as to what these signals were, given that (as you've been told repeatedly) - there was no ILS system installed at Smolensk-North.
What you want to ask yourself is what the Polish Air Force was doing in allowing such an inexperienced crew to handle such a flight.
