RetiredF4 - you asked: "Where did the expierienced pilots go, how could the training deteriorate that much and what has to be done to get the operation back on track. "
I may not have much inside knowledge but I know a few people who are connected to Polish military and civil aviation, the rest I know from publicly available information. I am not a professional so hesitant to write on this forum, but I allow myself this to put this here, I hope this starts interesting sub thread. As a Pole I would really like it to be back on track as you wrote.
It seems in late 1980's and whole 1990's the funding from military especially aviation kept dropping, equipment was getting more and more substandard. I remember visiting Air Force Academy in late 1990's and they were talking they would really like to get a simulator as they had none, only old TS-11 cockpits blinded where you could practise sort of bad weater flying on analogue instruments.
At the same time salaries in civil aviation went ballistic. Th regulatory bodies make it very hard for military pilots to switch to civil aviation in Poland, but still they had flight hours, experience etc. So they started leaving. When it al hit the bottom the F-16's came and a lot of money was pumped that way, but transport crews are not as flashy or interesting for high brass, politicians or the general public. They only became a bit interesting after our involvement in Afganistan showed we don't have any proper airlift capability, but this was only interesting for people who are interested in the military.
Still the salaries for aircrew stayed mostly fixed with the rest of the military and Air Force Academy applicants are only driven by war stories from WWII and all that polish pilot ethos.
Add to that general inefficiency, corruption and incompetence typical for all post communist hierarchical structures and you end up with the current state of things.
Most probably combat planes and crews are probably in better shape, although a few years back we have run out from the explosive charges for ejection seats for all Russian made planes and all Su-22 and Mig-29 were grounded for quite a long time until we managed to get some from Czechs. Probably things that are run together with US like F-16 program even still better (although we have actually less qualified pilots the F-16's).
And then we come to 36th special transport regiment - that seems (at least according to outsider knowledge) to be quite removed from all the good trends in the polish military and at the same time cut off from Russian and LOT support it used to have in previous era. Politicians are arguing about new planes for them for years now, but no one who can make decision realises these are not cars for the police and that long years of training are required etc.
And I think there we get the current situation. Col. Latkowski's interview - even if it maybe is a little biased shows how far the unit has fallen from the standards it used to have.
Just my 2 cents.