Polish Government Tu154M crash

[Chris Scott]

The Investigation

Quote from lomapaseo:
(1) "Predicting the response to an investigation before the investigation has been completed is speculative and serves no purpose..."
(2) "...If there is any controversy in the findings then look for this among the investigators and not what's made up by outside speculations.
(3) "As always in an air accident investigation, blame is not the objective although it may be manufactured in the minds of the public."
[unquote]

For once, lomapaseo, I think you are missing the point. Did you have a chance to read my original post of yesterday morning (Florida time)? The problem facing any investigation involving controversy is that not only must it be competent, thorough, and unbiased: it must be seen to be so; particularly in this case, where the historic national sensitivities can hardly be exaggerated. Perhaps these are not as well understood west of the Pond?

So my answers to your points are:
(1) The countries and personnel should be selected and assembled with care, with due consideration for the credibility of their reports, both to the industry and the public.
(2) As a retired pro, I would love to be able to agree with you...
(3) You are preaching to the converted, but we are talking about an investigation reporting to a Commission of Inquiry; led by an arch-politician, former president, current prime minister, and former intelligence officer of ONE of the two countries. What is "manufactured in the minds of the public" is likely to be all the greater for that.

You also wrote:
"The investigators will call for outside help if and when they need it and certainly have no need for purely political observations. I'm quite sure that Putin is not calling the shots, but only monitoring what gets released."
[unquote]

Doubts have been expressed, apparently even by Lech Walesa, that the captain of a Polish military aircraft had real autonomy of decision. In your world and mine, any Accident Inspector worth his/her salt would stand up to political pressure if, say, President Obama had started a presidential commission of inquiry. Perhaps we should ask some of our Eastern European forum-ites whether this ideal is credible in their part of the world.

Investigators calling "for outside help if and when they need it" makes sense normally, but would not help if there were any room for suspicion that the evidence (e.g., recordings) might have been tampered with.

Chris