I live in Warsaw in the midst of this terrible outpouring of grief. I had a PPL for many years and learned to fly on Norfolk Island in the South Pacific. This forum is extraordinarily interesting for me to read about of course as possible reasons for the accident. Excuse lack of technical commentary.
The nagging question for me is with so many beloved and irreplaceable dignitaries on board - such a precious cargo - why did the pilots attempt this risky landing in these conditions at all ? I suppose we shall never know the answer to that one for all sorts of reasons.
When I was learning to fly, on finals we used to come in over the cliffs on the island and approach the grass runaway over pine trees and a chapel - the island is covered in endemic Norfolk Island pines. There was a definite dip and significant loss of height at some point before crossing the cliff edge, which I could never predict, and I was always apprehensive of hitting the tops of the tall pines.
I was just wondering if there might have been a similar 'sinking' effect - loss of height - as he negotiated the valley and approached the slope up to the airfield? This unexpected 'sinking' as we approached land over the sea always bothered me a lot and would certainly have bothered him as it would have been so unexpected as the terrain contours were so visually vague. Could this explain his failed attempt to increase thrust and gain height - delay in spooling up? The visual illiusion aspect was an interesting comment I thought in relation to this slope. But I have never had experience of a low approach across a valley approaching a slope on the other side.
All this seems terribly irrelevant with the desperate scenes here in Warsaw as coffins are unloaded, public masses said and a grand sarcophagus carved for the president and his wife in Wawel castle in Krakow.
The sheer consequences of any sort of failure in this risky approach should have been invisaged by everyone on board (despite distrust of Russian motives) and the landing aborted - we all know this but.....Polish pilots in Spitfire Squadron 303 were fantastic but 'he who dares wins' is not always a case of positive outcomes.