Chris,
Your points are very valid, there are some extreme sensitivities involved. From what I see so far, the Russian side is uncommonly upfront with presenting any verified information as soon as it is available, I see a very clear desire to avoid any accusations of a cover-up. On the other side, there is also a keen desire to absolve themselves of any blame (controller interview, etc.), however a couple of posts back I have listed the three key questions, so far only the one regarding the number of approach attempts were answered (only one, not four as reported previously).
We still don't know what kind of approach was made - so far the released comms are at odds with a PAR approach, however a NDB approach in such conditions would have been illegal under any norms. I would also have expected a firm denial of an engine failure by now, yet the official Russian line is still that 'all possile causes are looked at'. However looking at the CNN footage, the first bits of wreckage are clearly flap parts, consistent with a tree strike scenario, an uncontained engine failure on go around seems very unlikely, and would surely have been picked up by Polish media if it were a plausible scenario.
I would expect that an independent third party involvement would not be in the interest of either of the parties. At present it seems that either the controller was not assertive enough (ie. he should have prohibited the approach, and waived the aircraft off to one of the alternates) or the pilot was too assertive in attempting an approach in conditions well below minima, in full awareness of this. The direct cause of the accident (whether the altimeter was set incorrectly, or there was pressure from some on-board VIPs) is pretty much irrelevant in the context of information that emerged so far, even making an approach was in breach of both russian and polish norms given the conditions. Someone will have egg on their faces, no matter what the final finding is.
From what we know now, it seems to be a sad case of 'get-there-itis', with both the pilot and the ground controller being aware of the importance of the event and the implications of a diversion, and reluctant to make the final call out that should have been the conclusion based on their profesional aviation background.
Last edited by andrasz; 11th Apr 2010 at 19:33.