franzl, the other forum says they don't know the distance, do count down from Far Beacon, and the real spans covered by the plane would depend on its speed and trajectory of the flight. The running speed know other black boxes, which contents are not told :o(
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Overall, the crew clearly had no desire to land, as follows from the talks (as min., from Russian text). aggravation - "fog" - we've got a problem "let's circle around may be for half an hour", etc.
But were "talked" into it.
"and what if we won't land? - we'll go to the spare aerodrome"
Of the fact that they were "talked" into landing - they informed the aerodrome nil. Kept shut up about it.
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Yes, I will ask more - but from what I understood from prev. posts - there should be an exchange at some point - military aerdorome, un-military - Decision? We are landing. or something like that. Any aerodrome should know what a plane is up to. That one was free of planes, but normally there are many in air, everywhere, I think a permission or informing the ground - something like that ought to have taken place, standardly, as part of procedures. An exchange with the ground on that.
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I also think it's not for nothing, that in first interviews that leaked through the aerodrome chaps exclaimed "They were giving no quittungs!"
And nobody understood what "quittungs" the despatcher meant. The height reporting, by the plane. Clearly the dispatcher knew he missed their real height on the glideslope and was deadly worried about it. May be he couldn't know theoretically - remains to be found out, depending on his equipment. By Russian military aerodrome procedures a plane is to tell his height at every talk exchange with the ground. But did the Polish crew know it - nobody knows.
How they were doing it on the 7th, for example? Did they report to the ground their height back then, 3 days previously? Nobody tells the public.
Also, it's the Captain was not the Captain on the 7th, he was 2nd pilot on the 7th. All is so aggravated :o(