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Old 28th Nov 2011, 18:03
  #1738 (permalink)  
Lena.Kiev
 
Join Date: Feb 2011
Location: Eastern Europe
Age: 61
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My view: no CRM at all, the PIC did everything; the PIC used to use ILS and had no practice using 2NDB, he ignored NDB; he couldn't use the yoke on the glidepath, he let GPS in FMS to control yaw (forbidden by the flight manual on approach) and controlled pitch (not descent rate) with autopilot's wheel (like a mouse wheel) - forbidden by the flight manual because executed with a delay. He used autothrottle - forbidden by the flight manual if no ILS. He decreased speed too late, so was late entering glidepath. Intead of go-around, he descended too steeply, engines on idle though the flight manual requires to go-around if on the glidepath engines rotate too slowly (the engineer failed to warn the PIC about that). The crew used radio-altimeter since 300 m above runway not thinking about terrain shape (hills and ravines), descended along descending slope of the last ravine and hit the ascending slope. Pitch control was too slow because of the wheel instead of yoke and engines on idle but speed still more than set into autothrottle.

Crew of another Polish airplane told the FO (over the radio on another frequency, so PIC didn't hear directly) of cloud base "less than 50 m, considerably". The FO deceived the PIC telling him "cloud base 50 m". That also nudged the PIC to try scud-running.

It was not Western PAR, but old Soviet radar - way less precise. Real pictures on the screens look not at all as neat as published photos. Anyway, the PIC ignored the controller and listened to the navigator who called aloud from a radio-altimeter; both PIC and FO looked ahead instead of at instruments. They saw trees at last in the dense fog - too late.

The president pressured the crew to land at the first attempt, the PIC yielded to the pressure and scud-runned, descended way below MDA in dense fog - both are guilty.

The above is from my technical point of view. There is another view: the president pressured the crew to land because he and other politicians and clergy were late to the political show at the graveyard in Katyn, i.e. he literally was in a hurry to the cemetery.
My beloved thinks that that was the reason of the crash, like in the old tale (as far as I remember it, and I'm translating from Russian): a fortune-teller told a prostitute that she'd drown. She avoided ships until old age and at last bought a ticket to a large ship. In the sea the ship began to sink, she looked up and asked the sky: "OK, I deserved this, but have all the other passengers to perish guiltless with me?". Then she heard a booming voice from above: "You don't know how much time and effort it took to gather all you together".
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