This unfortunate claim has been causing a lot of confusion among non-pilots at least:
…. they knew this airport quite well.
Captain Protasiuk were landing there many times, last but one landing was 3 days prior to the crash (he was the FO on the plane with Polish Prime Minister). I don't know, however, who was the navigator on that flight.
I took time to go thru some hundred or so Russian IAC and other charts, nothing like that with markings like in that one from Smolensk-Severnyj someone was lucky to find somewhere earlier. It is still unknown which type of IAC-chart the PLF 101 crew was carrying with them, if any...
just as BOAC said it:
I still cannot see why ATC is really involved here - even more so if there was no PAR equipment. If I had been that crew, and I had no specific instructions on "you have to do this and that" in my Ops Manual, I would have flown the 2xNDB approach exactly as any other - as they are meant to be flown, without any 'radar' input. Planned and flown my own glidepath, checked my own heights (baro), and probably ignored all protestation from anyone outside the cockpit in view of my cargo - OR requested a PAR.