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Polish Presidential Flight Crash Thread

Old 3rd Jun 2010, 16:20
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With the little amount of information I have I would think the controller is not to blame and probably (correctly?) thought the steeper descent was a deliberate manoeuvre by the crew for those few seconds until he realised they were descending far too low and tried to call a g/round.
I am more and more convincesd it was a deliberate manoeuvre by the pilots.

If the controller was confronted before with the "szczur" (rat, scud running)
landings performed by the Russian pilots before, he might have thought that.

Such "szczur" "procedure" (as mentioned by me before) consists of "diving"
under the clouds before inner NDB, keeping level and on course on NDB and trying
to squeeze the a/c in level flight between the ground and cloud base to the RWY.

So the initial "dive" might have been not that alarming for the ATC,
he has seen it before.
But not arresting the dive on time and disappearing from the radar screen was too much for him.

"Szczur" works well in flat terrain. But you have to bear in mind, that EPWA, the home base
of the 101, as well as 80% of Polish territory and airfields are flat as a table.

Analysing the CVR, I am more and more convinced they were trying scud run
to the runway, what they probably did before successfully, but having
a witness, or two in the cabin they couldn't talk it over, brief each other
correspondingly, and also couldn't comment on the scud run as they
performed it.
This would be also an answer to the question about lack of any comments
from PIC in the last 10 seconds.

He couldn't just say in presence of Gen. Blasik to the C/O "Robmiy szczura."
("We do a scud"), and expect the C/O to support him.
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Old 3rd Jun 2010, 17:08
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Ptkay, do you think that such manouevre has any sense in 50 m clouds? Pilots was told about 50 m clouds at least 3 times. Bear in mind, that 154 lose about 30 m when swithed from descend to climb in landing conf, and they must know that.
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Old 3rd Jun 2010, 17:32
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It doesn't matter what we think about such a procedure, it's important what military pilots thought about it. And we know about it being applied by crews before, sometimes with disastrous effects (vide CASA crash 2008).
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Old 3rd Jun 2010, 17:33
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I just try to understand, what is really hard to believe...

Re: "scud"

My CFI was a former fighter/bomber pilot (su-22),
as a prudent and diligent instructor, he never showed me any
such procedure, but in the evening, at the fireplace with his
friends, other pilots, many interesting stories were told...



BTW: Gen. Blasik was also Su-22 pilot and CFI.
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Old 3rd Jun 2010, 17:39
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And we know about it being applied by crews before, sometimes with disastrous effects (vide CASA crash 2008).
See also Su-22 accident in Powidz...
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Old 3rd Jun 2010, 17:55
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And we know about it being applied by crews before, sometimes with disastrous effects
And sometimes, with success...

10:19:43 2P It happened to me, It happened to me.
{translation comment: can also be translated as - That is what I had, that is what I had. }
And once we landed. (incomprehensible)
10:19:49 PIC(incomprehensible) only in Gdansk we had (incomprehensible), and at Gdańsk (incomprehensible)
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Old 3rd Jun 2010, 18:36
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Polish gen. Bartosz Stroinski (who had been invited to Moscow as an expert of TU-154) claimed the voice recordings' transcript is not the one he had signed originally at the end of April.
Link to the Russian press - anyone able to comment (I'm not fluent enough in Russian Lenta.ru:  ìèðå: Ïîëüñêèé ýêñïåðò çàÿâèë î ïîäìåíå ñòåíîãðàììû ñ ñàìîëåòà Êà÷èíüñêîãî
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Old 3rd Jun 2010, 18:44
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So what?
At the moment, copies of the CVR are being analysed by Polish specialists and
new, probably better transcripts will be available soon.

BTW: Stroinski is Col. not Gen.
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Old 3rd Jun 2010, 19:05
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More interesting not what "Gen" said - besides, there were two other signatures from Polish reps on this doc - Michalak and Tagalski (apart - who are these people?). But why we have fax copy from some xerox of document, taked from self-binder, with last page in the middle and with "not for circulation" stamp. It will be understandable, if it is copy, obtained by some yellow newspaper, but pdf file from government web site is the same.
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Old 3rd Jun 2010, 19:57
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sorry for the 'gen' - lost and replaced in translation - just thought a COL wouldn't claim anything like that merely to please the press?
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Old 3rd Jun 2010, 22:40
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This is the ATC, of course.
Thank you in the name of wide aviation community.

But also the pilot has to cooperate by reading back the altitude.
If he fails to do so, the ATC, in normal case of Russian military a/c
approaching, calls "go around', or "abort".
And atco didn't required read back of QFE,as it is written in rules. If he insisted they will probably refer to correct altimeter settings and tragedy would be avoided. That is direct "idea" of such and similar rules. To prevent mistakes. And that is may thesis fro the very beginning. If ATCO follow published rules tragedy wouldn't happen.
So what are definite mistake of ATCO.:
-No identified procedures,(reghardless idea of transfer of indentity which I believe that is not published for those airports) .
-He didn't insist on read back
-He gave go around instruction too late.

All those issue are based on available transcript of communications between twr and a/c and may differ from real situation.

And it is quite visible that rules in Russian military ATC operatiuon are safe,Practice is something different,so that is the reason why I said that 40% of mistake were in bad military ATC SYSTEM in RUSSIA.

@criss,
piot is giuilty,as ussual
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Old 3rd Jun 2010, 23:16
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TOGA button issue

Some new info not discussed here so far.

According to the people who know the TU-154, it is very clear that no attempt to disengage the autopilot from the programmed descend mode was made until the navigator reads 20 meters as the altitude. The TU-154 autopilot automatically disengages the different control channels when the controls are moved/forced manually, at which point the autopilot gives distinctive 400 Hz signal that is shown in the transcript as F=400 Hz. ABSU, with three of those corresponding to different autopilot channels being disengaged as a result of the pilots moving the controls and throttle, which only happened 2 seconds before the first tree was hit and 5 seconds after the first ATC "horizon" command.

Other Polish Tu-154 pilots are completely at a loss to explain all that.

http://www.flightgear.ru/wiki/index.php/Tu-154B_ABSU

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Old 4th Jun 2010, 07:01
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Singapurcanac - nope, you're guilty of making some stupid comments while not able to read.

FYI:

1. In my first post in this thread I said "new discussion about training in Polish Air Force is needed" - meaning the entire system is at fault, not only the crew.

2. Then I said directly to you that in Poland it's generally accepted, that the entire Air Force is to blame.

3. I've made references to other recent crashes in Polish Air Force that were caused by insufficient training - so again, not only the crew to blame.

4. You keep making posts about Russian military ATC while you have no clue how it operates. You keep repeating your same old song "no TL, no approach and landing clearance, no transfer to other freq" - after I told you approach and landing clearance was given, and transfer to other freq is not required even in "ICAO world".

If you can't understand/appreaciate all that then it's not my problem, but stop calling my name when making your stupid and false comment "criss=only pilot to blame"
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Old 4th Jun 2010, 07:28
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FYI, the ATC interview, cited on the other thread:

ATC sounds irritated

- How goes your yesterday's conversation with the crew?
- They were asked to go to the alternate. They refused.
- You offer them?
- Yes.
- For what reason?
- Because I watch the weather began to deteriorate.
- And what was the response?
- Answer: "I have enough fuel , I'll do one approach and will divert if i can't land."
- And we had information that he was offered alternative.
- I offered him also.
- And why did he refused?
- You may ask him.
- Why they make such a decision? They began to swear, or may be insisted, so you could not convince them?
- This was a decision of the commander.
- What's next? He said that he would make another attempt and then go to the alternate site, right?
- No, he said that if he can't land, then goes to the alternate.
- And what you do then?
- As I said before. Can't tell more.
- But what happened next? They switch off?
- No, why? He was on radio long enough.
- What are they talking about?
- What are the commands I gave - they give information in the begining, and then stop to give any information ...
- They stopped to listen to you?
- They must give a receipt, but they did not.
- And what a receipt?
- Height during the approach.
- They do not even give you information about the height of the plane?
- Yes.
- And what is the risk that they will not give a receipt?
- Wen they are on radio, they must give a receipt.
- Well, why they don't give this receipt?
- Well, how can I know? Because they are not fluent in Russian.
- Well, nobody among the crew speaks Russian?
- They were Russian-speaking, but numbers - it was quite difficult for them.
- So you did not have any information about altitude?
- No, I don't.
- So it turns out that he turned, attempted another approach, can't land, and then diverted to the alternate? Right?
- No, no, that wrong. One approach. Then he tried landing.
- Landing, which you forbidden him?
- I can't forbid him, I can only recommended him that it is not safe!


There are over 1000 posts on the other thread, among them the PAR procedures in Russia.

http://www.pprune.org/rumours-news/4...-crash-15.html
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Old 4th Jun 2010, 08:18
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Nothing of your thesis is under question.It is so obvious.
for me it is just unacceptable to blame one side when it is also obvious that other side ,"leave the rules ,a little."

If ATC strictly followed the rules result would be different.

you may agree,or not agree ,and if you don't agree it still doesn't mean that Russian military ATC practice is so good.
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Old 4th Jun 2010, 08:36
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you may agree,or not agree ,and if you don't agree it still doesn't mean that Russian military ATC practice is so good.
I don't say, it's perfect, but it works.

In other case we would have heard about an accident every day.

The Russian Il-76, that tried to land just before the 101 Tu-154
followed the rules and cooperated with the ATC and survived.

Does it say something to you?
Or you will keep relentlessly stirring this pot?
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Old 4th Jun 2010, 08:49
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If he needs their height why don't he request it? As detailed in my earlier post, his silence was for a full 13.5 seconds, until the plane "in his view" has already crashed (!) Not excusable with such arguments. He let it drop from 150m to 5m, without saying a word...

This can impossibly be according to procedure? There may be a number of reasons why he doesn't get a readback. Can be malfunction on communication equipment, or any number of trouble with the aircraft that make them too busy to respond. If anything it should bring him to a higher than normal level of alert. The opposite seems to have happened.

Last edited by dukof; 4th Jun 2010 at 13:09.
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Old 4th Jun 2010, 08:57
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If ATC strictly followed the rules result would be different.
And you know this how exactly?
If anything is clear from the transcript, it seems that the crew for a large part ignored ATC.
If they indeed had trouble reading the numbers back, ATC reminding them to do so was unlikely to have had much effect.
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Old 4th Jun 2010, 11:02
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Ptkay and Singaporecanac, peace will come only after someone makes public the name and number of radar equipment that ground control used. (It must be somewhere in the Polish 36th Air Force regiment papers from before)
(if we ever said it to the Poles, of course)
(Or may be Yak 44 pilots wandering around recognised it; radar is in the mid-length of the runway approx.)(they say in blogs)
What Smolesnk blog saw and took pics - by the looks of it, the chaps think it's smth No 6. The manual to this version 6 (found in the internet) has a part "Error by height". It seems quite awful, "error 100 m - when the plane is in settled steady glidepath landing" and "error 300 meters - to define a plane's position ? like, anywhere it is? off-hand? chancily?
When you simply want to see where is what, without previous ideas of it.

There was a discussion like, what the ground control then knows at all, ab the height, btw Far Beacon and Low Beacon (300 to 70 meters descend) and the answer was, type, of yrs of practice, seeing all the same on the screen every day, he ? somehow knows when a plane mis-behaves, things look odd, because all of them should move in the screen alike, the glidepath is one and the same, published in aerodrome manual and all.
Approx. so.

That's why I think un-healthy ground control interest in hearing the plane's heights told by the crew.
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Old 4th Jun 2010, 11:31
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I bet poor Polish pilot had no idea how exact the ground control sees him, given his equipment. He'd never be interested before, previous years Polish flights there were in normal visibility or, at least, in visibility (not without).
So for him the ground control messages "on the glideslope" must have meant "ground confirms I am doing alright in direction to runway, distance to it by time and height and allowed (correctable in time) deviations left/right".
As a matter of fact may be it was so, until a certain point.
Glideslopes re-built from speech there are already a dozen versions and all quarrel theirs is the best.

Russian blog says by ICAO standards a pilot should not report his height to the ground control, at all. That must have been Capt. Protasiuk's idea.

Moreover, folks doubt in recent practice even in Russian military aerodromes pilots keep to that rule in normal visibility, but, rather, are lax about it, as it is a pre-historic rule. From times when this type of radar equipment was used. (for example, version 7 of this radar is to be found in internet in the Baltics' site - "Museum of aviation" - in the antiquity :o) dpt.Las

That very aerodrome used other things, Russian equivalent of ILS, complementing this radar - when there were miltary planes stationed there and their unit/regiment, etc. But they left. Military left this aerodrome, last summer, were re-located, and took away all their good and useful things with, leaving behind the very minimum. For off-scheduled arrivals, chancy flights, in case they'll need the aerodrome as one-off, and for the use of the aviation factory nearby trying their planes, in construction (as I understood). This isn't a full Russian military aerodrome, this is worse, it is an abandoned version of it. A mini-bikini set. One glidepath direction left, instead of prev. 2 (East and West), from the other landing direction all things exported. 2 Beacons, 1 radar, one control booth looking like a shed honestly, you won't call it "a tower". Good runway though, 2.5 km and even, well/strong done.
The aerodrome rolled out for Poles all it could, built those "gates" of lights before the run-way (and very bright and large, noticed by the Yak, powerful "curve" light reflectors).

I think it's of course comms. There were no girls there! Men aren't talkative, esp. military men on both sides.

When, instead of Good morning glad to see you the Russian control said "conditions for acceptance - none" - why not to develop this further?!
Ask "what do you mean?!" and all.
The Polish crew was quite talkative with Belorussian ground controls en route before. May be if there wasn't his commander neraby, in whose presence he didn't like to lose face - he'd enquire, ask the ground control a couple of things, that flicked his mind.
When the Russian control asks "Have you landed at military aerodrome before?" - why not to ask what do you mean?! And the controller - why not to say what did he mean, by it? That he expects the pilot will be telling him height, or what? They could have discussed the glideslope, when who says what (IMH female O !) and how are they going to do it, in fog, together.
Disaster.
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