Hungarian media now quoting Andrzej Seremet, chief prosecutor of Poland, saying that after the initial listening to the CVR, "at this stage of the investigation there is no evidence for any pressure exerted on the pilots to land". It is also said that experts are continuing to analyse the background noise on the CVR to establish wether the "pilots were influenced in any way" (translate officialspeak - was there anyone else in the cockpit?).

Any of our friends in Poland in a position to provide any more details on the CVR contents ?

Arrakis,

you are right, thanks for correcting me, already edited.

andrasz, our posts crossed, check mine:

'...the CVR will show nothing..."

The Investigation
 

Quote from lomapaseo:
(1) "Predicting the response to an investigation before the investigation has been completed is speculative and serves no purpose..."
(2) "...If there is any controversy in the findings then look for this among the investigators and not what's made up by outside speculations.
(3) "As always in an air accident investigation, blame is not the objective although it may be manufactured in the minds of the public."
[unquote]

For once, lomapaseo, I think you are missing the point. Did you have a chance to read my original post of yesterday morning (Florida time)? The problem facing any investigation involving controversy is that not only must it be competent, thorough, and unbiased: it must be seen to be so; particularly in this case, where the historic national sensitivities can hardly be exaggerated. Perhaps these are not as well understood west of the Pond?

So my answers to your points are:
(1) The countries and personnel should be selected and assembled with care, with due consideration for the credibility of their reports, both to the industry and the public.
(2) As a retired pro, I would love to be able to agree with you...
(3) You are preaching to the converted, but we are talking about an investigation reporting to a Commission of Inquiry; led by an arch-politician, former president, current prime minister, and former intelligence officer of ONE of the two countries. What is "manufactured in the minds of the public" is likely to be all the greater for that.

You also wrote:
"The investigators will call for outside help if and when they need it and certainly have no need for purely political observations. I'm quite sure that Putin is not calling the shots, but only monitoring what gets released."
[unquote]

Doubts have been expressed, apparently even by Lech Walesa, that the captain of a Polish military aircraft had real autonomy of decision. In your world and mine, any Accident Inspector worth his/her salt would stand up to political pressure if, say, President Obama had started a presidential commission of inquiry. Perhaps we should ask some of our Eastern European forum-ites whether this ideal is credible in their part of the world.

Investigators calling "for outside help if and when they need it" makes sense normally, but would not help if there were any room for suspicion that the evidence (e.g., recordings) might have been tampered with.

Chris

Mr. Sermet said.
"At the current stage of the investigation, there is no data that would indicate that anyone exerted pressure on pilots of the presidential plane". He added that flight recorders of the crashed plane will be analyzed with this in mind. He pointed out that experts will try to analyze the background of conversations so as to determine "whether there were any suggestions brought forward to pilots".

So basically, at the time they still don't know whether there was a pressure and will only try to look into it.

Reason
 

As a professional pilot only one logical explanation comes into my head - on the last attempt pilots (bless them god) tried to land the plane in a very unusual but as they thought only one possible way - coming closer to runway deviate just a little bit below the profile to be able to see approach lights (if they are installed at that military place at all) or the RW itself and safely land there. But they came too low, maybe just by a couple of meters.....
All Aviation history is written on blood, sorry but this is true. I hope this lesson will and must be learnt by all professionals reading this very sad story..

If there was pressure exerted, (I think there was) it would be hard to prove, neither will it be allowed to be proved, IMHO.

Way too much pride at stake.

kingofbongo, thanks! In H media it came down as the tapes have already been listened to.

Chris Scott

I'm careful about quoting a named person to the point of a one-on-one discussion or argument (that works fine in real life but gets confusing in the meanings in a general discussion forum).

I accept your ponts and no doubt we agree in much. I only meant to respond to the possible interpretations of the words as quoted and to express my views in balance for the general readership.

lomapaseo,

Thanks for reading my points. There's probably little to be done at this late stage...

That's the point
 

I am sorry about the '86 mistake.
All the knowledges I got are from the pilots met in the WAW when I was flying LOT line flights for them due to...
And

criss

the way you are writing is the explanation for me that the bitter treatment of anybody else is your way of life, you are not able to understand a mistake, you are bound to speak to anybody from the second floor avoiding the pure common-sense I was invoking (even landing on RWY33 coming from Gdansk is a questionable decision).
I wish you all the best anyway.
Your way of reaction stands for what was in their mind, in the way they were trying FOUR TIMES to find a strip in nowhere's land.

No, simply I don't like fancy stories instead of facts (86 was not your only mistake), and people knowing it better than the actual crew. This perceived mistake of the IL62 crew flying to Warsaw was discussed ad nauseam, and bringing it here makes little sense. We've now had 23 years to analyze that, they had like 25 minutes, and almost no information what's going on.

And again - what four times??

Sorry guys - just waded through the first dozen pages of this thread, but can find no reference to the runway in use. The crash site 'hybrid' map quoted an accuracy of a couple of kms - no help.

Sorry if I've missed the obvious, or a relevant post.

fly low
 

But they came too low, maybe just by a couple of meters.....

The reports indicate that they hit the ground 1,500 to 2,000 metres from the runway. At 1,500 metres from touchdown, assuming a target of 15 metres over the runway threshold, to be on a 3 degree glidepath, they should have been at 100 metres Height Above Touchdown (HAT.) Hardly "just by a couple of metres."
The HAT for a missed approach would have been in the order of 60 metres HAT.
I shall not criticise the crew, as we do not yet have all the information. However, altimetry has to feature large on the list of possible contributing factors.

NDB approach in a fog... descent below minimum...
Military airfield... which was almost not in use more than 9 month...
The Mr. President's choice was to land at the NEAREST airfield...rush....
Classic crash.

Aileron Drag
avherald states:

It was Smolensk airbase.

Smolensk (air base) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Arrakis

"The Polish officer should not be cowardly"
 

In August 2008, the pilot of Kaczyński's plane was pressured by the president when he refused to land in Tbilisi during the South Ossetian war between Georgia and Russia.[42][43] During that incident, the captain of the plane, Grzegorz Pietruczuk, was asked by the president's staff to change the flight plan and land in Tbilisi.[44] After consulting with the commander of his unit, the captain refused, justifying his decision by safety concerns. He was then visited in the cockpit by Kaczynski himself, who tried to convince him to change his mind. Kaczynski later told journalists that "the Polish officer should not be cowardly". Nevertheless, the pilot held his ground and the plane landed in Azerbaijan as planned. A few weeks after this incident the pilot of the plane was decorated by the defense minister for following correct procedures in this case and keeping the safety of his passengers utmost in his mind.[44] The pilot continued to fly the president's plane after the incident, even after Kaczynski expressed unhappiness with his performance during the flight to Tbilisi.[45] Grzegorz Hołdanowicz, a leading Polish defence analyst stated his belief that in Smolensk the pilot would have been under pressure to land, despite advice from air traffic control to the contrary.[43]

2010 Polish Air Force Tu-154 crash - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

In the UK press today about the above post;

"It was known that Mr Kaczynski once fired a flight crew when they refused to land at Tbilisi - and flew to another airport"

I guess there's an interesting discussion on russian forum:

I don't have a good knowledge of Russin, however excerpts were on Polish forum, and I can happily translate.

If you take the picture at the top, there's a vertical situation (ground level, units are meters) describing distances and positions. At 0.0 you have runway threshold. AT 0.6km there's a road, mentioned in some simulations and screens. At 1.1 km you can see the NDB location.

If you now look back into the CASA case, the pilots looked for visual, or at least ground visual contact, and they just descended below clouds. If we assume similar might have happened here, here's a possible chain:

NOTICE: This is speculation ONLY.

1. The crew decides to go for approach
2. They're descending as planned until 2-3kms from the runway, and some 200m above. Slowly they're descending looking around, searching for clearing in the clouds.
3. They suddenly have an opening in the clouds, and oops - they find themselves quite high (notice terrain drop at 1.5km). They start to descend below proper descend line, and reduce speed.
4. Suddenly, the hill begins. The terrain goes up, the pilots try to get back into the air higher, losing speed probably. They do not manage to do it properly, and they end up on NDB antenna, 1.1 km from the runway, then they still climb until the fall about 600m later. Lack of speed? Could be, depending on thrust, we might know on official.

Some questions remain of course. If they had QFE set, would they go below 0? Never know, they might've been happy to see the ground and decided to go on visuals, it was seconds after all. Perhaps a QFE/QNH match (as described above)?
And why would they go "on top of the trees" once they catched visual with ground, instead of trying to stay as close to the clouds?

This is all speculation, however I am more and more convinced of this (or similar) scenario, involving descend to visual and then a hill climb (from 200 to over 250 meters within 1.5 km). Anyways, CFIT is very plausible considering that plot on Russian forum.

Adam

PS Idea behind has been published on Polish forum, I'm just retranslating to give you all this info.

ARRAKIS
 

This is the correct URL:

(your URL got slightly confused by the parentheses!)

This blood was spilled many times years ago. To think this is even being considered at this time is both frustrating & disquieting.

Once the new old ideas start to flow in.... we go right back to the original classic TO and LDG accidents:uhoh:

Silly question

would this flight ( civil ) had a locked cockpit door ?

Reports have indicated this aircraft was owned and operated by the Polish Air Force. (not civil)

With the President in the back it wouldn't matter anyway.

I don't know whether this is true or not, but it makes me wonder. Why would anyone in his right mind try to override a pilot who prefers to err on the side of safety? Even if you're a 10,000-hour pilot yourself, doesn't it make sense that if either of you has a doubt, you should do whatever seems safest? If the pilot dies, so does everyone else … so what kind of reasoning (if it can be called that) would lead anyone to second-guess the pilot?

It's like the old saying goes: If you have to ask yourself whether or not it's safe, it's not.

And of course it's all the more true if the passenger pressuring the pilot knows nothing about aviation himself.

Unfortunately it seems that there will always be crashes arising from this type of pressure. I hope that wasn't the case here, but it sure looks that way so far.

Data shows rising terrain on approach path, according to Russian pilots it's a known local trap if you're unaware and try to get low to attain a visual contact.

There are a number of pilots who bust NDB minima and get away with it -- until they hit something. In the interim they believe themselves a cut above their fellow aviators. Often with their employers' acclaim:}

There was one accident in Sioux Lookout where the crew hit the NDB mast -- a classic illustration of skill exceeding judgement.

In whitewater canoeing, I am quite willing to run a rapid with an 99% probability of success. If I fail, I get wet and the lifejacket bumps my odds of survival to well over 99.9%

But a 99% probability of success busting minima in an approach gives you a 1% probability of incurring an event with at best a 5% survival rate.

<<Why would anyone in his right mind try to override a pilot who prefers to err on the side of safety?>>

Possibly because they have absolutely no clue about aviation operations.

A British Prime Minister flying out of Heathrow once made it clear to the crew that there were to be no delays. Once the PM was aboard the aircraft was to taxy out and take off immediately. Unfortunately, there was a 30 minute ATC delay... so we had the pilot taxy all around the airport for 30 mins and then take off as soon as he reached the runway. The VIP was most impressed with the expeditious service, despite wasting tons of fuel...

Remember - a lot of VIPs are brainless.

Please try and read the few posts before yours before commenting. And no its not true - he attempted to overide the pilot and the pilot stood his ground and was decorated for doing so,

Given the terrain profile - see my post 393, the airfield starts on the right side around 1,8 km mark - at Smolensk it's quite easy to hit something in case of poor visibility.

Arrakis

I very briefly did executive charter flying and it was the VIP mentality that scared me away from it. On one occasion I did a flight into an airport with no approach aid of any description. The VIP told me that he had flown with Netjets, a few days earlier and the crew diverted to another airport due to weather. He told me that because of this he would not be using Netjets again.

On another occasion I was at a holding point waiting for a helicopter to do it's thing. The VIP tapped me on the shoulder and shouted "go, go" thinking that I had just stopped at my own convenience.

This is the mentality of some of these people, they just don't understand what is going on. I can't think that the crew wanted to attempt the approach; they must have been under a lot of pressure.

Another fact from todays interviews:
Former president, Lech Walesa said that, when he was flying Tupolev, and there was some dobuds about flight or some delays, the captain of aircraft was leaving cockpit and walking to cabin to get some "compromise" about rest of flight and cosulting decissions with president.
If in this case was thesame situation, the CVR probably won't bring any new informations for investigators who speculates "president fluence".

And a little piece of knowledge about Crew, cause we forget about them.
The story of my friend, RIP
Google T?umacz

Fair_Weather_Flyer

Yes I can relate to that.

It is not easy to stand up to pressure, especially when it's the boss exerting it. The ground rules must be established early on. It does require experience to stand up to this and a lot of experience in some cases. "Given them an inch and they will take a mile". "Help them out" once and they will expect it every time and then you become their whore.

I have been subject to commercial pressure right from the beginning of my career. The worst is a privately owned aircraft with a boss or bosses who are out of touch with reality. In civil aviation commercial pressure is an absolute killer if you allow yourself to be pushed.

When things do go wrong, these people will be the first to put blame on the pilot, if they are able. "Why did you do that Captain?"

As far as I am concerned, the most important person on the aircraft is me and be damned if I am going to be ordered by some imbecile to fly the aircraft into the ground.



Be polite but firm. At times I find hard to stay polite.

YouTube - Jak dosz?o do katastrofy prezydenckiego samolotu - symulacja wydarze?

Possibly interesting, unfortunately my polish is non-existent though.

Apologies I don't know how to embed the video.

I am wondering why Russia is leading the investigation.

This was not a civilian plane, so ICAO rules for accident investigations probably don't apply. Since it was the President's plane, wouldn't the plane be exterritorial and off-limits to Russian authorities, similar to an embassy or an ambassador's car? And wouldn't the same principle apply to its wreckage?

Can the Russians get any secret NATO equipment from the wreckage?

conspircay theories?
 

I have read the following speculation:
ac had a problem with one of the engines. A amateur movie of the ac taking of at Warsaw supposedly showed a flash on one of the engines.
Fuel was dumped. the only possibility was to land in Smolensk.

On the tv pictures it looked like there was no fuel left for fire. There were no signs of burnt trees etc.

Any opinions on that.....?

Flash8, this youtube clip is full of nonsense, like "they circled the aerodrome 3 times, according to experts to learn local topography and runway track, which they then enter into autopilot". Unfortunately, we have a pair of self-proclaimed experts that run a well-known aviation monthly, and are often invited to TV and newspapers to sell their theories.

One can only wonder how you can learn local topography not seing a thing...

Avegnon - if they had time to dump fuel (which btw, is impossible on T154), they would have time to go to another airport, international aerodromes were only 15-30 minutes flying time away. And there's no information about any engine failure so far. The amateur movie showed a flashing beacon. And they wouldn't fly for 90 minutes with a known failure to end up at an aerodrome below minima, having a possibility to land at their homebase which was cavok. My colleague was working when they departed, and there was nothing unusual.

What kind of "secret NATO equipment" can be on a Russian-made plane that was overhauled in Russia a few months ago?

This thread is beginning to quickly deteriorate in level of discourse.