The Georgia Incident 2008
Ptkay,
The source you linked is from "Gazeta Wyborcza", a major Polish newspaper that has always been very hostile to President Kaczynski and his political formation.
40 min. ago in the main Polish TV news, a couple of witnesses who were onboard of that flight to Tbilisi in 2008 denied the "revelations" of the newspaper you quoted. One of them was Kaczynski's assisstant who was with him all the time during that travel, the other one - a well-known Polish publicist who flew with them to Georgia. They both confirmed there indeed was a disagreement between Kaczynski and the pilot but on the ground in Ukraine during a waystop where they were taking onboard the President of Ukraine. Nothing like the President walking into cockpit inflight happended. They stated that after this disagreement it was clear to all that the flight was bound to Dagestan the moment it took off from Ukraine. They said the PIC at some point indeed was ordered to divert to Tbilisi but it was an order received by fax given by Polish Minister of Defence. The PIC decided not to carry out this order for safety reasons.
My conclusions:
- as it was stated a number of times in this thread, one should take media reports with a grain of salt, especially if "news" come from media engaged in political struggle
- so far, both Polish and Russian official sources have said there is no evidence of any influence/pressure on the pilots prior to the crash
- even if the 2008 incident had looked exactly as presented by "Wyborcza" newspaper, in my personal opinion, the experienced military pilots from an elite air regiment can hardly be considered so mentally fragile that they could (if needed) breach any procedures fearing that "the president would be angry". Especially if in 2008 the pilot did not face any career-wise consequences for his decision (some say he was even awarded a medal). Poland is not a banana republic.
- grief period in Poland is over. Political war is erupting again, especially as it enters a very short unplanned presidential election campaign. Today's large publication in "Wyborcza" may just be a bullet in this political war with arguable relevance to the 2010 TU154 crash but being a fuel for political discussions.