BOAC

Well, grizzled - I'll take your word for that, but in 17 years mil flying I NEVER saw that sort of approach, and a PAR without a PAR ain't a PAR, is it? Hundreds of PARs, loads of SRAs as an IRE but never a 'grizzled1 arrival'.and, of course, probably not what happened here?

RetiredF4

To explain it a bit further:
The SRA approach is monitored by the area surveilance radar, an antenna which turns 360° and a scope as well 360°.

The PAR approach uses two antennas pointing to the arrival section, one for the vertical azimuth or glideslope and one for the horizontal azimuth, the approach course, and two correspondent scopes for the controller. If the glideslope is out or unreliable, the azimuth part will still give you an exact lineup. However, it is often named as an SRA, because the minimums of an SRA approach will apply.

However, and again: What was it there over in smolensk? Where did the information concerning the glideslope come from? Was the appropriate equipment available? It still doesn´t make sense, that ATC is calling "on glidepath, on course" when they had no equipment to get the information from. And if they had the equipment, how did it work, because the information transmitted is more off than on. And to what use was the information intended to aid? Just for info for the crew or was it part of a talkdown on whatever approach it might have been.
BOAC (sorry for adressing you direct), i know you dont like those questions, however therefore i´m interested in your opinion not on a global view, but on a direct answer to those questions.

Alice, also your good work did not provide an answer to those questions either. We heard how it should have been, but no explanation why it was like that. The controller is complaining, that the crew did not read the altitude to him. But he didn´t ask the crew at least once.

This ATC stuff is not for blaming ATC, it was still the crew who flew the aircraft in to the ground, but it offers reasons why the crew faulted.

franzl

SadPole

Some clarification, it isn't general Blasik who reads the (most likely radio) altitude. It is the navigator (aka shturman in Russian, and it is clearly determined already by the transcript as Russian 'sh''t'. They (MAK) forgot to include that "shturman" thing in the legend which introduced some confusion by various translations to English. A few altitude readouts not identified as being done by the navigator are, for example, at 10:39:59 and the one at 10:40:42 and marked as "A" which the legend identifies as "undetermined speaker". As some of the "A"s have been identified by now as being Blasik, some people jumped to conclusion that all "A"s are Blasik, which may or may not be true. The transcript that has been released is the oldest one, and since then they flew in a lot of people who knew everyone in the cockpit to positively identify all "A"s.

Anyway, majority of the wrong altitude readouts are clearly done by the navigator, and at this point the question of "what was this guy doing/thinking" seems to be the key to the whole thing. The lesser issue is which of his readouts were done over the radio and thus heard by the ATC, thus possibly being the reason for invalid "on path" ATC confirmations. .

Which leads to the Russian ATCs "kvitancye" issues and what they mean. I think Alice025 description is pretty clear. Maybe it is a cultural issue, but I can read it and understand very well why they would do it that way.

• The procedure is pretty clear, a computer communication protocol like. Say the essential info that you have, and the ATC tells you the essential info he has. You need it twice as often, you say your bit twice as often. The initiator says his bit and does not get an answer, he repeats it, does not get it then, he falls back/resets into safe position (say go-around) etc. This is exactly how most computer protocols work and do error corrections. Dedicating communication channel to continuous one-way transmissions (string of info not requiring acknowledge) under negotiated circumstances has some advantages but also some disadvantages, main of them being the need to negotiate the switch from two-way to one-way communications and parameters of it.
• It can work with even the simplest, oldest, and improvised equipment. Russians always liked to do it that way, for reasons that should be clear from their history. Imagine you have to set up make-shift airport on some meadow or frozen lake.
• The protocol used can be exactly the same if the ATC has approach altitude readings independent from the plane reports and when he does not. If he has independent altitude confirmation and it is way off, he can tell the guy something like: "goaround and figure out why your altitude readings are this much off" – which SHOULD have happened here IF the ATC had any plane-independent altitude readouts and IF the crew followed the protocol.
• If ATC equipment allows it, switch to frequent PAR-like approach can be made by the pilot simply making more frequent requests/reports, thus requiring more frequent and thus more precise replies, which could be advantageous in sudden emergency situations.

Fox3WheresMyBanana

Thanks for the support, Grizz. Just dug out the logbook BOAC, and found several PAR Azimuth Only's immediately, including one 'in anger'. Valley, Leeming and Yeovilton all gave me them.
Mind you, off topic, the kit in the Tornado allowed a good navigator to give you a better talkdown than ATC (if the radar was working!). Would have been useful during the Cold War if buckets of instant sunshine had fried Air Tragic.
Thanks for the heads up on the translations, SadPole. You, Alice, etc are marvellous! Looking again at the final approach, I think the A transmissions here do all belong to the General, because of the timings and the transmissions that we know are the Nav's. I'd got that the General was calling Baro.
I haven't been able to track down a translation of the Captain's briefing to the crew on the approach and everyone's allocated roles. Please tell me there was one at some point! Or it's definitely time.

SadPole

I believe I can answer that. According to the ATC, the Polish crews flying there did not know Russian procedures and he repeatedly complained about it to his superiors.

About 1hr before that Tu-154, another plane (Yak-40) flown by the same Polish unit pilots carrying journalists landed there completely ignoring his procedures/commands, including command to goaround. He did not like it, complained about it, but his superiors decided that making a fuss over it would be seen as political provocation for reasons I already explained.

The Yak pilots are now being investigated over their violations, although it does not seem to be a thing reported in the west too much:

http://wiadomosci.gazeta.pl/Wiadomosci/1,80273,7984775,Wieza__Jak_40_ladowal_bez_zgody__Piloci__Tup olewe.html?skad=rss

Google translator works (somewhat) to show issues involved.

Meaning, the whole mess is far more about being a really, really stupid political dog-and-pony show than it is about aviation procedures. Both ATC and the pilots were mere puppets in that game and this is the main problem.

I mean, I still hope that he wasn't pissed off enough to watch them fly into the ravine while giving them "on path" confirmations. I do not think that's what happened at all – whence I try to explore other possibilities.

dukof

The whole theory that ATCO is responding to heights called to him by crew is a very poor conclusion from CVR. Indeed, it indicates the complete opposite. ATCO calls "on course and glideslope" at 8km, at 6km, and at 4km, without any height being in the transcript beforehand. So what is he basing it on? Hence it's absolutely no reason to believe this was any different for the remaining two "on course and glideslope" calls at 3km and 2km.

The radar equipment was there, as shown on images. I can't understand why anyone would believe it was not working. Only because one person supposedly made a comment that it was not? Highly unlikely in my opinion.

It is however very interesting to observe that the 4km, 3km and 2km, "on course and glideslope" was given 400-600m too early. Which I explained in this post.

I don't believe the crew did such completely amateur mistakes as suggested by many in this thread.
- believing the ground was flat because all polish runways have flat approach? I mean.. for someone on Microsoft Flight simulator perhaps. but a trained crew?
- Not knowing they listened to RA heights..? When these are probably automatic calls, so they would know very well it was RA.

I think they believed they were closer to the runway than they were. In this case even if they made a small dive, or more likely simply continued descent, from (what they thought were) 100m to 70-80m.. That would not have been a deadly reckless maneuver. I think it's quite possible they simply did something they thought was quite safe. But they believed they were already passed the hole. Unfortunately not. Of course the crew made many mistakes. Not monitoring their rate of descent, not cross checking barometric altimeter. These were the main blunders I think. Even if they did rely on wrong ATC distance readings, that is no reason for a CFIT. However, it could be an indirect cause, combined with the other mistakes of the crew.

ARRAKIS

There is a possible explanation why they started using RA. In the landing procedure there is a requirement to start at 60m reading out height (RA)every 10m down to 20m and every 5m down to 0.

Arrakis

BOAC

Well, busy since I last looked - I'll deal with F4 and dukof as western mil approaches of whatever sort are not really relevant to Smolensk as we see.

So, F4 - I certainly do not mind the questions - it is the 'assumptions ' to which I object. As I stated much earlier, like dukof I believe a 'PAR ' was available and being used on that occasion as a monitor - that explains the "on course on g/s", plus the obvious surprise element when the a/c descended into the valley followed by the "go around" call from ATC. Why it did that we can only guess. I have given my belief before.

For dukof, if you accept my scenario, the 'error' you find in the range calls do not matter - if the a/c was doing 'its own approach' the ranges would have been indications only - not required for any glidepath consideration - the important message for the crew would be 'on course on glidepath' - if indeed they were taking any notice. I would certainly NOT be telling ATC my height if I was flying my 'own' approach such as NDB or RNAV/GPS.

dukof

BOAC,

I'm not sure if I 100% get your idea... But in my view it does indeed matter. Why? Because if you hear "on course and glideslope" with the correct range, navigator may see that this range does not match with their height. Or others of the crew may feel/understand this by their intuition, as they know their height. Hence, there is a possibility to understand that something is wrong. But if you are given both a mistaken "on glideslope", in combination with a wrong range.. Then you are totally deceived.. No chance to catch the error. If you see what I mean.. Both data are wrong. But since both are wrong, they do not contradict your height. But if only one of the data was wrong, the data would "not make sense"..

Does that make sense ?

Fox3WheresMyBanana

Dukof has a good point about the early range calls from ATC. The centreline portion doesn't matter because it's correct throughout, and doesn't change. The glideslope calls are invalid, but the pitch corrections match the internal altitude calls not the ATC calls, so I don't think the crew are acting on these either. It is possible the ATC range calls were being used by the crew, but even considering Dukof's points they are still in a relatively steep descent for a long time. At 6.8m/s sink rate, then 20m is gone in 3 seconds. This isn't a quick dive from 100m down to 80m.

If calling the RA readings is standard, then presumably this is the Nav's job as that's what he is doing.

The start of this still, I think, goes back to the approach briefing, or lack thereof. Can somebody find and translate this please, or point me in the direction of it (I've tried previous links without success). I'm sure RetiredF4 as an IRE will have said the German equivalent of "good landings start with good approaches, good approaches start with good approach plans" more times than I've had hot dinners. My IREs always said this. I always said it when I taught IF.
The PF has presumably got everyone calling altitudes so he can look out. There is either no clear horizon, or there is a horizon but he's slow. Either of these would give the wrong descent rate. The key thing is the lack of correction to straight and level after the first two "100" calls. I still think that this is because the PF believes he already is level. And he is 'level' on the RA, as the blue line on that lovely graphic shows.
It seems pretty obvious to me that no one is checking the instruments except for the altimeters.

RetiredF4

So let me put "our believe" together:

They fly an onboard approach like NDB, ATC is using the onfield PAR system and is giving glideslope and course informations.

Next question:
How come, that neither the NDB procedure was flown as published and the glideslope and course information given as info was wrong as well?

Why did the crew plan and execute a glideslope-orientated approach instead a stepdown approach, which is imho much more suitable in WX like that? With a MDH of 100 meters you have to make the decision for a go at around 140 meters not to bust the min, whereas you can do a drive in at the minimum of 100 meters.

franzl

Fox3WheresMyBanana

I agree Franzl, but if I'm right about the PF thinking he was level because he'd mentally switched to listening to the RA calls, then in his mind he WAS running in at MDH from over 2km out. Which is what you and I would plan to do on a day like that.
Except, of course, that we always cross-checked our instruments; which is why we're sitting here typing not pushing up daisies.

RetiredF4

I´ve read the whole CVR (as far as available from 2. may. The approach briefing started at 10:09. I omitted points not of interest and as it is google tranlated i changed some words and phrases for better understanding, i set my own wording in brackets

10:09:55,2 N /(What kind of) procedure.
10:09:57,4 KBC It is not known
10:09:59,3 N / INT Landing data.
10:10:00,6 2P / 2P Partially recorded
10:10:06,2 N /We have a course of 72 working hours GIC.
10:10:10,3 N / INT PB-adjuster. PB. (Altimeter adjustment?)
10:10:11,9 KBC 100 meters.
10:10:14,1 KBC The course of the band through a minute. ???
10:10:15,0 N / INT Fuel.
10:10:16,8 2P / 2P About 11 tons on land.
10:10:17,9 IP / B / And I admit it. I admit it. (???)
10:10:20,6 2P / 2P Okay, do not set yet.
10:10:23,0 KBC We will establish a 2-5-9, with the other side.
10:10:48,2 KBC The course of the band 259 is installed.
10:11:05,0 2P / 2P No, well, the land is visible, something invisible. Can not be a tragedy (Can not be a problem)
10:11:08,7 2P / 2P Do you have something to write?
10:11:11,8 N / INT Yes.
10:11:19,2 2P / 2P So, little by little we are getting ready.
10:11:34,2 A The course today, temperature, pressure, (nrzb).
10:11:36,3 IP / B / You can have pressure and temperature?
10:11:37,9 N / INT How do I know
10:11:42,7 2P / 2P Do not know. No, you tell me what the temperature. (Laughter).
10:12:22,6 2P / 2P We still see?
10:13:32,6 A 2-5-2.
10:13:37,3 S / B / S I did not say that I am?

and so on and on...
franzl

Fox3WheresMyBanana

Thanks Franzl,
so is it clear from this:
(1)whether they'll fly glideslope and decide at DH, or get down to MDH and cruise on in
(2) who's monitoring which instruments
(3) whether they talk about the dip
(4) whether they'll listen to ATC or not
(5) what their source of range info will be

and at what point does the General enter the cockpit?

Thanks again

Alice025

I don't know why control's distances appear to be issued 500 meters ahead.
And why give "on glideslope, on course" when it looks from charts the plane was beyond the "allowed band". (deviations correctable in remaining time to the effect of landing safely)

I think when tech readings of the flight parameters are hopefully released after the 20th - we surely may be finally have ends meet.

One simply gets tired to worry :o); Russians already survived 2 months of survivors shot by KGB campaign, all lost for ideas were they shots or what, then Poland says it's Polish security who ran over to the crash place, were waiting for their President arrival in Smolensk, found his body by some signals issueing thing, and guarded him as their duty are from Russian security :o) and passers-by, shooting likely a bit around :o)
(and asking Russia for 2 months after who was shooting mind it :o)))))))))))))
Then we had 16 seconds of tape lost "stolen by MAK from Polish public" then they were found back again :o)
We had controlers interviewed by Polish investigators 1.5 months ago and last week "suddenly" news were released that controllers deliberately fooled Polish crew giving them WORSE weather and visibility than it really were and admitting it openly to the Polish prosecution.
Then it is found to be normal aviation meteo rule in forecast, as forecasts are never 100% they get oriented (by the book) by the worst visibility scenario, as not a single plane crashed so far on finding visibility is actually better by the ground. As opposed to another scenario.
So many things were already how to say, anyway, that I think 500 meters will be also "found". Somewhere.
But this is just my general observation.

Fake Sealion

I go back to one of my previous posts......

IF the twin scope PAR was working....why did the controller complain to the investigators that the aircraft was not giving him height information when he requested it?

As he was giving "path and slope" info as per the CVR, this suggest it WAS working, therefore why did he need height info from the aircraft

Also he gave the command "horizon! " which further supports the view that ATC had height info on their scope and indeed witnessed the "dive" on the scope.

This puts to bed any blame attached to ATC I believe.....except perhaps an unexplained delay in calling "horizon" when the rate of descent was unusual to say the least. BUT that could be because he assumed the crew had acquired a visual reference and were diving under.

I go with the theory that the PF on hearing two consecutive 100m calls "thought" he was level at DH (possibly also believing it was baro-alt?)and felt safe to continue onward, looking for a visual reference.

A simple glance at the baro alt and/or vertical speed would have saved the day.. . Probably

Tagron

Following on my post # 544 (yesterday) one issue that is not being addressed on this forum is the response, or lack of response, to the first TAWS “Pull Up” warning.

It is indisputable that if they had gone around at that point they would have survived. But instead, six seconds later, P2 announces “Normal”.

But it was far from “Normal”. In the next 1.5 seconds there is a further “Pull Up” and P2 calls “go around”. Total time from 100m QFE to go-around call 9 seconds,height loss 60m.

What happened in those critical lost seconds? My guess is the crew were taken by surprise, even shocked, and instead of reacting immediately they tried to assess from their TAWS display or their radio altimeters why this warning had occurred. Maybe they were looking outside too, but they were surely in cloud. The warning had stopped (perhaps because they were now over the ravine) so the instantaneous decision was that it had been a false warning.

It looks to me that, ironically, the TAWS instead of being a life saver could be said to have contributed to the disaster by distracting the crew at a critical point of the approach after they failed to react correctly.

At 100m with a high sink rate they should have been starting to level the aircraft to be level at the 70m procedual height at the MM ahead . Or going around because they had reached the official minima. (100m) And the minima specified in their own Flight Manual.(120m) But they continued descending.

Suddenly there is a second “Pull Up”, P2 realises they are already at 50m QFE, below the correct height for the MM (“Near Beacon”) and still descending rapidly. Because of the high sink rate, and the aircraft’s inertia they don’t have height for a successful go-around.

I think that Arrakis (#552) is correct when he says the the low level RA call outs are just standard procedure. It is entirely conceivable that this accident is not the result of inappropriate use of RA for approach judgement.

I am basing these comments on the graphics posted by Janeckzu. But we need the FDR data to show us exactly what happened at the 100m point..

210thars

Alice025,

Can you translate?
???????? ? ???? ???? - AVSIM.su Forums

Здесь развернута, Т-образная антенна. Семидесятиметровый трехлучевой полуволновой вибратор. Т.к. привод ближний высота подъема антенны 7 метров. В здании располагается стационарная ПАР-10С. Противовесы подземные. Рядом со зданием располагается антенна маркерного радиомаяка Е-615. На здании фонарь КНС-4У (кодонеоновый светомаяк) Выдает методом вспышек азбукой морзе буквы, приписанные дальнему приводу этого направления посадки.
Вообще еще встречается так называемая зонтичная антенна (могу ошибаться) для приводов. Видел её всего лишь один раз. Представляет собой одну мачту высотой 10 м (ближний привод) или 22 метра (дальний) и наклонно этаким зонтиком , натянутые лучи сверху вниз. Комплектовалась таким девайсом вроде ПАР-9 (на базе УАЗ-452), но данная ПРС в масовую серию вроде не особо пошла из-за своей капризности.
Т-образная антенна может располагаться как по направлению посадки, так и поперек.
Вообщем есть у меня несколько фоток ближнего привода, где то на 10 мб, если хотите, давайте ящик вышлю.

There is a checkered black and white building that has the "lantern" on top, this is the same lantern on top of the vehicle at the Smolensk radio beacon and it looks as if the same T-mast antennas that are mentioned at the building, are the same at the radio beacon at Smolensk.

На военных аэродромах, как правило все оборудование окрашено в защитный цвет. А кодовый неоновый светомаяк горит красным свечением и его видно со всех сторон. Виден ночью в ПМУ примерно на удалении 50-60км. Включают ночью(в случаях перевода аэродрома "на ночь" при производстве полетов и днем в случаях плохой видимости).
Выглядит как труба потому, что там вертикально установлены неоновые лампы - наподобие ламп дневного цвета.
Про маркер(из Су-24):Звуковая сигнализация МРП-56П прослушивается на фоне сигналов Р-862, Р-864, АРК-15М. ДПРМ излучает сигнал в зоне при Н=200-300м – 800м по курсу и 1200м в плоскости перпендикулярной курсу; БПРМ – при Н=50-90м соответственно 600 и 800м. Высота срабатывания при пролете над маяком не более 2000м.



Post #29 shows it clearly and prior post #21 talks about the PRMG 76U and the PRMG-5

???????? ? ???? ???? - AVSIM.su Forums - ???????? 2

http://havatrafik.********.com/2009/...prmg-5_03.html

RetiredF4

As i understood from previous posts, was Smolensk airport not in the database of the TAWS, therefore the warnings hadn´t been judged as valid.
Any better idea?

franzl

BOAC

Unless the system is different, would 'terrain ahead' and 'pull up' not be independent of any TAWS database and purely based on sensed terrain closure?