The pilot who died in Smolensk, was on the crew with the "coward-pilot"
Pilot in command of the crash flight near Smolensk, Cpt. Arkadiusz Protasiuk, was also on the flight with the president in Tbilisi in 2008. One of the crew, PIC, was called coward after refusing landing due to bad conditions. - Could it affect the crew? - Monika Olejnik asked her guest, General Anatol Czaban, head of Air Force training.
According to the head of training of Polish Air Force Gen. Anatol Chabany, the pilot who crashed in Smolensk, might have wanted to check whether the conditions at the airport are really as bad as it reported by flight control.
ATC opinion is another view of the weather conditions from the land, another is from the plane, a Tupolev first pilot Arkadiusz Protasiuk knew that an hour before Yak-40 flown by less experienced pilot was landing at the airport Smolensk, so he could check to see if weather conditions were really bad.
"The pilot knew that the ceremony is important"
Czaban said that Protasiuk already flown several times in the Smolensk airport. He pointed out that an explanation of why the disaster happened is the matter of a special commission.
According to Czaban, the pilot "had to take into account several factors", such as the importance of Katyn ceremony and the fact that the delegation was late, and therefore "decided to check whether he can make it." - For some reason he has not taken the decision to divert - said the general. When asked if there is something like " VIP airplane syndrome", he said: - As I am 32 years in aviation, no one trains pilots to risk more than what is in legislation.
This pilot was called a coward because he did not want to land
- And how it has contributed to the accident, the famous situation when there was pressure on the pilot to land in Tbilisi? They had the pressure to land. Do you remember that the prosecutor investigated, and that the pilot was insulted as a coward - the program moderator, Monika Olejnik asked.
Arkadiusz Protasiuk in 2008 was then the second pilot in the crew, which refused the landing.
Czaban said that then the situation was different, because the airport in Tbilisi had been closed and did not accept any airplanes. - He and his colleagues of the crew were called cowards after refusing landing due to bad conditions - he said.
He said that the crew did not meet any unpleasant consequences and Protasiuk in that flight was the second pilot.
He also considered it unlikely that the crew before deciding to land has consulted with the Commander in Chief of the Polish Air Force Gen. Andrzej Błasik being on board of the flight.
He also rejected the supposition that the crew just before the landing attempt stopped feeding information about the height of the tower of the ATC due to language difficulties. He assured that Cpt. Protasiuk spoke Russian well.
Asked about the opinions of civilian pilots, according to which the landing attempt was inadmissible in these weather conditions, Czaban said that "the LOT (Polish Airlines) pilots generally operate to an airport and back," while military pilots flying in different places.
I leave it without comment.
Source:
W Smole?sku zgin?? pilot z za?ogi, gdzie by? 'pilot-tchórz'
Last edited by Ptkay; 22nd Apr 2010 at 07:02.