Pimp MR you are right, but what disappoints me most about this thread is that absolutely no-one in the whole seven pages has really made the point that this is a Ryanair airline transport operations at Lodz problem.
Now of course there is a chance that it is no such thing: it is possible that any two pilots at Lodz could have got simultaneously distracted for a moment and the classic "Oh bugger!" occurred, but it doesn't 'feel' like that's what happened.
No, what the various commentary 'feels' like is that they drove down the road into a soft patch they just didn't know was there!
The pilots themselves don't seem to be the problem. The standard of their training on type isn't the problem. I don't think it is fair to say their ability to choose the right plates and interpret them is the real problem, either. It very much seems, from reading between all these lines on seven pages, that the real problem was the airline's (lack of) on the ground knowledge of this airport. And maybe its even as bad as the airline not seeing this kind of thing as their problem but as their captain's problem, that was the real problem.
This kind of mistake could surely never happen if Ryanair ops were properly on the ball and communicating peculiar hazards like this to training captains who in turn would communicate it to those captains expected to operate the route?
Contrary to popular opinion, Ryanair isn't a fly anywhere military type operation, and its pilots are not 'fly anywhere' pilots. If they were, I have no doubt that the 'can do' current batch would be part of a relatively successful air force. But that's not the game here. Here we have a commercial airline which chooses to fly to unusual airports. Nothing wrong with that at all so long as les installations are PROPERLY checked out BY THE AIRLINE in advance, and all pertinent information is PROPERLY communicated BY THE AIRLINE to its crews in advance. No surprises. We can't, and Ryanair management can't expect Ryanair pilots to be some kind of roving DIY boghoppers anonymous personally managing the peril of every unsignposted offroad soft or wet patch in Europe that they might encounter.
Had anyone on the Ryanair ops payroll ever stood on that surface before the incident? I wonder. No need to? Oh OK. So it was 'discovered' how? Not by this event, I hope.
There is such a concept as 'due diligence'. You can't escape it in this world no matter what kind of 'can do' airline or corporate outfit you might think you are. There are simply some things you must do in peacetime ops, like check, check, and check again (if you don't mind).
Otherwise you must as an organisation expect from time to time to look worryingly daft.