Polish Government Tu154M crash
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When protectthehornet said that, I must admit, it was the first thing that crossed my mind as well. It might have been in a similar capacity (ie. high ranking officials etc with "get-me-there-itis") alas...
The link from what protectthehornet was referring to is here:
1996 Croatia USAF CT-43 crash - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Just hope that it wasn't a risky-shift scenario what with all the big airforce bosses onboard and probably (pure speculation here) being in the cockpit?
-- JFK --
The link from what protectthehornet was referring to is here:
1996 Croatia USAF CT-43 crash - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Just hope that it wasn't a risky-shift scenario what with all the big airforce bosses onboard and probably (pure speculation here) being in the cockpit?
-- JFK --
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If the above weather report is correct and it was 0.5 Km vis. and there was not an ILS.
What type of approach were they using in those conditions????
On a more serious note -- I am sure that what transpired on the deck was/is/were easier said than done.
Eager to hear what the CVR recorded (if ever made possible).
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I'm not sure the relevance of a/c produced to hull loss is relevant without the amount of cycles or flying hours etc is included?? In which case i'm sure the 737 is a safer more sucessful aircraft?
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for me it' s simple, don't hire ex military pilots.
these guys want land at all cost. I know it, I flew with military pilots...
maybe not all, but when you have been trained in the military for 20 years, it 's very hard to change habits.
These guys have to land, in a case of war, guys land, whatever happen.
in no war time, they land in any situation, in case there is a war!
these guys want land at all cost. I know it, I flew with military pilots...
maybe not all, but when you have been trained in the military for 20 years, it 's very hard to change habits.
These guys have to land, in a case of war, guys land, whatever happen.
in no war time, they land in any situation, in case there is a war!
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FlyHelico, you do a disservice to military pilots who follow SOP's, not to mention exercise their own good judgment. Counter to your statements, note the quote in the Wall Street Journal from a reporter who traveled in the aircraft that crashed on a previous flight, and reported on the late President Kazynski of Poland:
"Of course, I don’t know exactly what happened and this is not to suggest anything, but let me share a story that shows President Kaczynski’s attitude toward his own personal safety.
"During the Russian-Georgian conflict over South Ossetia, Kaczynski flew to Georgia to show support for the Georgian leader. The president, as the supreme commander of the military, ordered the pilot to land near the breakaway republic and the military pilot respectfully refused, saying it was too dangerous and that Kaczynski may be his supreme commander on the ground, but not in the air.
"Eventually, he landed at a safer airport and the president had to take a really long drive in a motorcade. Upon arrival, an angry Kaczynski told reporters that it was unacceptable for his orders to be ignored like that and decisions about his travel be made “on such a low level.”"
"Of course, I don’t know exactly what happened and this is not to suggest anything, but let me share a story that shows President Kaczynski’s attitude toward his own personal safety.
"During the Russian-Georgian conflict over South Ossetia, Kaczynski flew to Georgia to show support for the Georgian leader. The president, as the supreme commander of the military, ordered the pilot to land near the breakaway republic and the military pilot respectfully refused, saying it was too dangerous and that Kaczynski may be his supreme commander on the ground, but not in the air.
"Eventually, he landed at a safer airport and the president had to take a really long drive in a motorcade. Upon arrival, an angry Kaczynski told reporters that it was unacceptable for his orders to be ignored like that and decisions about his travel be made “on such a low level.”"
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I hope he was happy with his decision of taking his low level status pilot off his flights so he could control the next captain more efficiently. It sure saved that long limo ride. Sorry for the sad news. Poland lost a lot of people going to a humanitarian event.
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The Times is reporting that the Russia Today reports (Chinese whispers perhaps) that the crew of the TU 154 were dumping fuel before the missed approaches and final accident.
If this is true then it puts a whole new perspective on the Captain's determination to get the aircraft down despite the prevailing conditions.
Polish president dies in plane crash after pilot ignored warning not to land - Times Online
Interestingly the Times also repeats the 'TU 154 is unsafe' canard!
Mechanical issues aside, the questions about the imperative to land still seem firmly trended towards the nature of the president's political fears about a diversion.
YouTube - Heavy fog & human error possible causes of Lech Kaczynski plane crash in Russia
If this is true then it puts a whole new perspective on the Captain's determination to get the aircraft down despite the prevailing conditions.
Polish president dies in plane crash after pilot ignored warning not to land - Times Online
Russia Today and other television stations reported that even before the first attempt to land, the pilot had been dumping fuel — indicating some form of mechanical problem — so by the fourth attempt there was no alternative but to put the aircraft down.
Mechanical issues aside, the questions about the imperative to land still seem firmly trended towards the nature of the president's political fears about a diversion.
Kaczynski, whose body was also said to have been found, was a former anti-communist campaigner with a penchant for taunting the Kremlin.
He had every reason to believe he was not welcome in Russia. Polish observers said he may have interpreted an order to divert to Moscow as an attempt to sabotage his big day in Katyn, where he was due to attend a mass and give a speech.
Russian media reports said he had once become angry with a pilot who refused to land in Tbilisi, the Georgian capital, on the grounds that it was unsafe. The same thing may have happened at Smolensk, aviation experts claimed. They suggested he may have pressed the pilot to make at least two attempts to land.
The crew included Captain Arkadiusz Protasiuk, Major Robert Grzywna, the first officer, Artur Zietek, the navigator lieutenant, and Andrzej Michalak, the engineer. All were said to have been very experienced.
He had every reason to believe he was not welcome in Russia. Polish observers said he may have interpreted an order to divert to Moscow as an attempt to sabotage his big day in Katyn, where he was due to attend a mass and give a speech.
Russian media reports said he had once become angry with a pilot who refused to land in Tbilisi, the Georgian capital, on the grounds that it was unsafe. The same thing may have happened at Smolensk, aviation experts claimed. They suggested he may have pressed the pilot to make at least two attempts to land.
The crew included Captain Arkadiusz Protasiuk, Major Robert Grzywna, the first officer, Artur Zietek, the navigator lieutenant, and Andrzej Michalak, the engineer. All were said to have been very experienced.
Last edited by Cacophonix; 11th Apr 2010 at 09:43.
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I can't offer much insight on this crash but I can offer a small amount of information. Judging from satellite pictures of the crash site, the aircraft came down in a relatively small space on the order of 200 or 300 meters. The surrounding area doesn't seem too badly damaged, most of the trees nearby are intact - but it's not exactly thick forest anyway.
I vaguely recall a post here stating that bits fell off the a/c several km short of the crash location, but I can't see any evidence of that. I guess it depends how big the bits are though!
Somewhat off topic, but yes it was a success if you look at the engineering. Buran was considered superior to the US shuttle in most areas of it's design and construction.
Buran was never an operational success due to the fall of the Soviet Union, not because there was anything wrong with the shuttle itself.
I vaguely recall a post here stating that bits fell off the a/c several km short of the crash location, but I can't see any evidence of that. I guess it depends how big the bits are though!
Was the Eastern Space Shuttle a success?
Somewhat off topic, but yes it was a success if you look at the engineering. Buran was considered superior to the US shuttle in most areas of it's design and construction.
Buran was never an operational success due to the fall of the Soviet Union, not because there was anything wrong with the shuttle itself.
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Just a thought. The Commander of the Polish Air Force was on board. It is not unknown for top brass to want to pilot the aircraft themselves. I could relate some (fortunately amusing) incidents when as a QFI in the RAF, the “Old Man” wanted a go.
Jack
Jack
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I'm not sure the relevance of a/c produced to hull loss is relevant without the amount of cycles or flying hours
It probably wouldn't be relevant even with that data. Conclusions on aircraft safety drawn purely by counting hull losses are utterly meaningless.
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Any possible similarity?
AVFLASH NEWS
January 25, 2008
Polish CASA C-295M Crash Update By Glenn Pew, Contributing Editor
The Jan. 23 crash of a Polish air force air transport aircraft that killed all 20 aboard (including high-ranking officials) has led Polish officials to ground its fleet of nine EADS CASA C-295M aircraft pending the results of an investigation. The crash aircraft had fewer than 500 flight hours and its data recorder has been recovered. It clipped trees prior to crashing approximately 1 nm shy of the runway at Miroslawiec air base in northwest Poland. The crash occurred just after 7 p.m. local time. Weather at the time included cloud bases near 300 feet with heavy rain in the area. It was the aircraft's second approach. An instrument landing system had yet to be introduced at Miroslawiec, a spokesman for the Polish air forces, Lieutenant-Colonel Wiesław Grzegorzewski, told the Polish Radio Information Agency. He added that the pilots knew that the ILS system was not operating at the base and were landing by means of a precision approach radar. The pilots, according to the spokesman, were used to such conditions. The flight was returning personnel from a flight safety conference in Warsaw. Among those killed were Col. Jerzy Pilat, commander of the Miroslawiec air base, and Brig. Gen. Andrzej Andrzejewski, commander of an air brigade based in Swidwin. The Polish government is recognizing the loss with three days of national mourning.
January 25, 2008Polish CASA C-295M Crash Update By Glenn Pew, Contributing Editor
The Jan. 23 crash of a Polish air force air transport aircraft that killed all 20 aboard (including high-ranking officials) has led Polish officials to ground its fleet of nine EADS CASA C-295M aircraft pending the results of an investigation. The crash aircraft had fewer than 500 flight hours and its data recorder has been recovered. It clipped trees prior to crashing approximately 1 nm shy of the runway at Miroslawiec air base in northwest Poland. The crash occurred just after 7 p.m. local time. Weather at the time included cloud bases near 300 feet with heavy rain in the area. It was the aircraft's second approach. An instrument landing system had yet to be introduced at Miroslawiec, a spokesman for the Polish air forces, Lieutenant-Colonel Wiesław Grzegorzewski, told the Polish Radio Information Agency. He added that the pilots knew that the ILS system was not operating at the base and were landing by means of a precision approach radar. The pilots, according to the spokesman, were used to such conditions. The flight was returning personnel from a flight safety conference in Warsaw. Among those killed were Col. Jerzy Pilat, commander of the Miroslawiec air base, and Brig. Gen. Andrzej Andrzejewski, commander of an air brigade based in Swidwin. The Polish government is recognizing the loss with three days of national mourning.
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jackharr Just a thought. The Commander of the Polish Air Force was on board. It is not unknown for top brass to want to pilot the aircraft themselves. I could relate some (fortunately amusing) incidents when as a QFI in the RAF, the “Old Man” wanted a go.
Jack
Jack
On board there were top brass PAF officers. All communication with ATC and cockpit recordings are classified to this time!!
And now, 7 top Polish generals died too!
...the crew of the TU 154 were dumping fuel before the missed approaches...
Amazing amount of ill-informed posts in the past 12 hours surfacing on this thread that started off reasonably sound.
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Military PAR approach
According the words of Russian Air Force Vicecommander gen. Aloshin it should've been a PAR approach. His description of cooperation between ATC and crew almost certainly indicates that kind of approach.
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Classified you say... Please check Dokument ujawniony przez min. Klicha and explain how come this "classified" information leaked to this news portal.
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Sorry to interrupt your nice offtopic chat, but quick update on topic:
According to polish press and witnesses of the crash, Tu154 was not approaching 4 times but just circled airfield 3 times, and then pilots decided eventually to land. Almost 0 visibility and no ILS = off center line approach, wrong glide slope.
About 1 km before runway it seems that they tripped some antenna (PAR ?) and tried to level up with full power.
According to polish press and witnesses of the crash, Tu154 was not approaching 4 times but just circled airfield 3 times, and then pilots decided eventually to land. Almost 0 visibility and no ILS = off center line approach, wrong glide slope.
About 1 km before runway it seems that they tripped some antenna (PAR ?) and tried to level up with full power.
Could we PLEASE stop this discussion on Russian vs. US technology that is rapidly deteriorating into the ridiculous!
From what we know the make of the airplane played very little if any role in the accident. Yes, it was a 20 year old TU5. Yes, it was completely overhauled last year. Yes, it was outfitted with western instrumentation including FMC, EGPWS, TCASII, etc. No, it was not outfitted with RR engines (some twit confused the Tu-154 with the Tu-204).
So far from what seems to be known, the accident has all the hallmarks of a dozen or so similar events when a non precision approach in marginal weather placed the aircraft to a position it had no intention of getting to. The last one was just two weeks ago at DME...
At the moment the critical questions we should be asking (and hopefully getting answers soon):
From what we know the make of the airplane played very little if any role in the accident. Yes, it was a 20 year old TU5. Yes, it was completely overhauled last year. Yes, it was outfitted with western instrumentation including FMC, EGPWS, TCASII, etc. No, it was not outfitted with RR engines (some twit confused the Tu-154 with the Tu-204).
So far from what seems to be known, the accident has all the hallmarks of a dozen or so similar events when a non precision approach in marginal weather placed the aircraft to a position it had no intention of getting to. The last one was just two weeks ago at DME...
At the moment the critical questions we should be asking (and hopefully getting answers soon):
- What kind of approach did they fly ? We know there is no ILS, there is a NDB but doing a NDB approach with 500m vis is suicidal, not to mention being against all written and unwritten rules. The crew were professional, even under pressure to land it is extremely unlikely that they would have done someting like that. Most likely they were flying a PAR approach, but at this moment we do not know. Language very unlikely to have been an issue, all Tu pilots would have received their type training in Russia, language proficiency was one of the selection criteria.
- Did they really make 4 approaches ? There have been reports (see above post) that they only circled the field 3 times, that sounds more like holding over the field waiting for the weather to improve. If indeed there were 3 prior missed approaches, then the event hovers at or is beyond the definition of being reckless, and would be a strong indication of the kind of pressure the crew were under to land.
- Are the reports of wreckage found away from the main impact site true, and if so are they indicative of a tree strike at that point, or are they supportive of an in-flight failure (engine or other).
Last edited by andrasz; 11th Apr 2010 at 10:09.