RegDep

RockShock, are you sure that you have the latest available transcript version?

ARRAKIS

RegDep,
I can just confirm what RockShock said regarding col Latkowski's interview.

Arrakis

SadPole

Then look at it again, and tell me what they are talking about there.

Here is the issue - one of the Air Force generals is supposed to be chosen to go on training in the US (aka behind the "big water") as part of Polish military elite in NATO (aka assignment in NATO). Blasik was recommended to be canned in the aftermath of the CASA disaster. He wasn't because of personal intervention of Lech Kaczynski. According to CASA report, Blasik was not exactly competent for the position he was holding, and apparently, not too many were jumping for joy at the idea of him being given another star and thus cemented in his position – only because of connections with Kaczynski.

The crew discusses why Blasik is working so hard. How does Blasik "work hard" during the trip to Smolensk? They discuss the fourth star and the trip beyond the "big water".

What is the crew doing discussing all that at the beginning of the flight? Why is that relevant in what they are doing? Would you care to translate that conversation yourself – since you claim mine is biased?

As to Kaczynski and NIK - I don't really give a damn about that story. As I said - the reason I mentioned it is because it is being used to discredit Latkowski as person biased against Kaczynski. Supposedly, Lech Kaczynski as head of NIK investigated Latkowski and that's how Latkowski trouble started, which he ended by resigning, that's all. I merely preempted you from coming up with this Kaczynski-camp nonsense on your own.

Now, listen, I don't know what exactly your problem is RockShock, but you seem to be trying to censor everything that would point toward the real reasons why that stupid trip and attempted landing took place.

So let me spell it out for you:

1. The crew did everything by the book - FANTASY

2. The crew behaved as if they were trying to commit suicide - REALITY

3. The crew can suddenly become suicidal at the same time all on their own - FANTASY

4. Someone really really wanted to land in Smolensk, and pressured the crew - REALITY

5. Russian ATCs are at fault - FANTASY

Well, I guess I am so wrong to take Latkowski with 25 years flying experience seriously and laugh at theories coming from Jaroslaw Kaczynski. After all, Kaczynski is Poland's foremost authority on aviation, since he has a bicycle driving permit.

RegDep

RockSchok, ARRAKIS,

I stand corrected .

RockShock

RegDep: That's the one SadPole is apparently referring to, judging by the timestamp he mentions (all Polish transcripts are shifted by 2h...)

As far as I remember, that's the only one published by MAK, though I stand to be corrected.

Of course, there've been some new findings by Polish criminal lab, partly shown at the press conference in Poland, but there is no Polish official transcript document yet.

RockShock

Add no. 6 to the list:

6. SadPole is an internet troll spreading misinformation: REALITY

SadPole

Come on. You were supposed to translate that conversation from CVR.

I will give you the timestamps, even, but obviously, if I translate these phrases it will be biased.
10:03:12
10:03:17
10:03:20
10:03:22
10:03:30
10:03:35
10L03:54

RetiredF4

So let me spell it out for you:

no, they up.

2your wish-thinking, no proof at all except the outcome.

what a stupid assumption, therefor not only fantasy, but nonsense.

4.Your reality, but no proof, or show me otherwise with hard facts

They are not at fault, but they could have done a lot of things different.

But we repeated those pro and contra enough times, so have my 2 cents on it.

franzl

SadPole

I understand your points. However, for example, all your points about ATCs would be 100% valid if both the crew and the ATC worked for the same team, trained the same procedures and were required to use them. None of these facts are true. What's more, the trip was sort of an "in-your-face" operation, and nobody on either side liked their predicament – because it was first and foremost an idiotic pre-election dog and pony show, and Katyn was the excuse.

As to proof of the other assertions - they are all around, both directly and in well documented past behavior - such as meddling with crew, strong arming the crew, or "fixing" the fog so otherwise illegal landing could take place. It's all well documented now.

MountainBear

I am not supporting any judgment or drawing any conclusions in this thread about the political debate. But I will say this:
Both you and F4 are overplaying the transit nature of fog. Meteorology has advanced a great deal in the last few decades. 8-12 hour forecasts are accurate to about 80%. Short term forecasts (4-6 hours) to the 90-95% range.

I appreciate the fact that the impact of fog on flying decisions is not always clear cut. The Met forecast is not good enough to predict, for example, if the fog is 10 or 50 feet above ground level from one ten minute period to the next. But fog is not a whimsical phenomena. It obeys the same physical laws as the rest of the universe. If the short term forecast is predicting fog; there's fog. It's irrational to suggest otherwise.

RegDep

I am not sure if I should be doing this, but here is a shot from my "second-hand" transcript and the comments therein, over the mentioned time period. Anybody has a clarification what these comments are about? Please do not say: just BS - it may well be BS, but I'd like to know a bit more of the background than that.

ARRAKIS

It's all about the PAF commander, gen. Blasik, waiting for a 4th star and a key post on the other side of the pond, etc...
Arrakis

Tiger65

It is very likely, that there wasn't any fog at all but very low cloud base reaching the ground in some places.


IL-76 flew below own&airport minimas, GA command when IL-76 almost crashed - ATC didn't see him coming, not to mention commanding TU-154 GA when it already crashed into ground.

vorra

Why do you think so?

RetiredF4

The weather itself is no contributing factor what so ever in this accident.

it comes in to play when judging, wether to begin the flight and later on to commence the approach down to the minimum made any sense at all. But again, it is not illegal to start an approach in this weather, so forget about it. Otherwise i would have been illegal a hundred times, and i was not and i still live like thousands other pilots who have done such approaches.
And every trained pilot should be able to handle it, if he sticks to the publihed and his personal limits.

So it makes no sense to misuse it for political pi**ingmatches.


In aviation regardless if it´s civil or military there is no place for different interpretations of ATC-Aircrew interaction. There has to be general understanding of regulations and procedures for safe conduct of flight. If differences in the systems are present, both parties have to know about it beforehand and have to act accordingly. There is no excuse from either side, neither from PAF nor from Smolensk ATC if this understanding was not present.

With those kinds of arguments u permanently disqualify your otherwise useful inputs. If you want to tell me, that the accident ould not have happened if that .......your words.......... political pony show would not have taken place, then i agree. but it is a nonsense statement, lets stop flying and the accident rate goes to zero.

Or in other words: 25% of the heavy car accidents in germany are caused by drunken drivers. That means, that 75% of them are caused by not drunken drivers. To really get the accident rate down, you have to get those "not drunken" idiots of the street and you reduce the accident rate by 75%.

Come on, llets talk about hard facts and not about some reported behaviour out of the past biased by political motives and journalistic sensationalism. You cannot build an accident investigation on such hear sayings.

And another point: The military is no "kindergarden". It is organized not like civil aviation, and it never will be. If the sh+t hits the fan, commanders have to send their people in harms way wether they like it or not. And any soldier knows about that from the beginning. That´s the way how the military command structure works and it is the same all over the world and definitely not much different in the countries on the north half of the globe. Soldiers are trained to cope with those issues. But that does not make them suicidal pilots on command in peacetime.

This thread turns out no more valuable information, because the screening of the facts with political biased fog takes place again and again.

Whats still in the blind is the complex of leadership and command in the polish airforce. Hereby i raise the question, how can it be, that a crew with not enough knowledge and not enough expierience is in command of the number one aircraft with high ranking people on board? 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.

What still bothers me is the question, how an closed airport can be o fully operational status within short time with everything fully operational in such a short time under civil rules (when i understand it correctly it´s what the MAK report says) or under military rules. In Germany this task would take a year and more only for work and checking.

What still bothers me is the question, wether a ATC controller can just leave his unit on place A, go to place B some 100 Km away and start to work there on the same level as he can do in his known environment?

Those are also points, where MAK report is very tight lipped in stating background and doing analysis of operational status.

franzl

SadPole

The whole point is, the crew was NOT allowed to make their own decisions and thus command the plane within their own skill and safety limits. How was anybody from outside the plane supposed to prevent that???

You are still saying there is no proof of it? Let's look at the transcript.

10:03:12 to 10:04:04 – The crew discusses the issue how general Blasik works so hard to get that extra star and assignment in NATO. How does he "work hard" during trip to Smolensk?

Then, on the same breath one of the crew says:

10:04:11 It will be a… massacre. We won't be able to see anything.

An elegant proof, would you say, of following:
1. That the crew knew about fog before leaving
2. That the crew saw it as a suicide mission
3. That it was not their own idea
4. They did not like their predicament

But, please feel free to tell me what else that conversation means. Take your time. Come up with absolutely best spin possible.

Afterwards, after contact with Minsk,
10:11:01 Well, I can see earth… Can see something… Maybe it won't be a tragedy.

What exact proof would you accept short of HD video of someone holding a gun to the pilot's head????

RetiredF4:
While indeed ordering soldiers into harm's way in wartime is indeed part of war, last time I checked we were not in war with Russia, and they were not delivering some critical bomb-load through fog to avoid anti-aircraft fire, so I really don't know how that applies here.

While general Blasik or "main passenger" could be seen as within their rights to risk their own life ordering pilots to do such crazy crap, they would be committing a crime volunteering some 90 unsuspecting people to go along with them on that mission and the crew committed a crime by following such orders – IF this is what happened – and I think this turn of events is probable enough, supported enough by clues and evidence, to be investigated FULLY.

Azrael229

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.

Golf-Sierra

Point taken.

However, one of the posters here is determined to prove that the crew was undoubtedly put under pressure - no, even under an imperative to land at all cost. The arguments put forward are:

a) Presence of Blasik in the cabin. At least one witness has stated that this suituation was quite common aboard 101 and does not prove that something out of the ordinary took place. A year or so prior to 9/11 I was flying Munich to Warsaw aboard a fairly empty plane and I took a wrong turn out of the toilet and walked into the flight deck - as the door was left wide open and the pilot's were flirting with the cabin crew - yes - prior to 9/11 an open flight deck door and occasional pax/cabin crew inside were quite normal. Civil aviation thrived for over 50 years with an open flight deck.

b) the crew took off despite known fog conditions. The forecast at departure did predict fog - but it was unknown if this fog would make a landing impossible - since fog is patchy. The best meteorological models (e.g. in the UK) typically have a grid size of approx. 4km. That is the resolution you get. Yes - there are local, more detailed models, e.g. for Heathrow, but not for an airport such as the one Smolensk. One could argue that if such a forecast had been made for any major civilian airport then flights would have been held at the departure airports. Of course - no one wants hundreds of planes waiting in the stacks around EGLL doing trial approaches ang going round most of the time - as this would be an ATC/logistical nightmare. But in the case fo a VIP flight to a minor airport the logic is different. Yes - it makes sense to fly to the destination, attempt to land hoping to get a visual on the runway before reaching MDA, perhaps go around a couple of times or hold until it clears, finally divert. I would expect this is a standard way of handling things in the case of VIP flights, be they governmental, film-star, rock-star, porn-star or corporate.

So I am still not convinced that there was an element of exceptional pressure for the crew to land at all cost.

As I stated a few pages of posts before - I was never a great fan of L.Kaczynski - but I am more and more inclined to agree with his brother that the MAK report's emphasis on the crew being under pressure and - in particular - Blasik's alcohol level do seem to have some kind of political agenda attached to them. (I am also also perfectly aware that the Polish side was involved in preparation of the MAK report so by no means do I point fingers at whose political agenda it may have been).

One last thing which I think is still being overlooked is the role of the YAK crew. Had their communication to PLF101 been a simple dry "PLF101 Yak40 here, be advised visibility very poor, RVR 200m, cloudbase below minimums. Over." the outcome could have perhaps been much different. I mean, what was going on? Is this kind of friendly chit-chat on open frequencies some kind of a SOP under PAF rules?



Regards,

Golf-Sierra

Tiger65

MODIS Rapid Response System - AERONET_Minsk Subset - Terra 250m True Color image for 2010/100 (04/10/10)

stratus clouds - Stratus cloud - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

RetiredF4

To make it clear from the beginning, dear Sadpole, i´m answering to your post for the benifit of other readers, because it seems to be sensless to answer to you with knowledge, insight and facts. You either dont see the reality, or you dont want to see it.

I even think now, that you are a politician or you are on the payroll of one. You act like one in an election process trying to attract votes. They also talk a lot, hear nothing and forget everything five minutes later.


The crew was not forced to crash their aircraft and kill the passeengers all along with themselves. Their own lacking skills killed them.

That is a global saying in ther meaning of "he has an aim to acchieve something and he works very hard for it".
It has nothing at all to do with the situation on board 101 at that very moment.

Soldier Talk. It has nothing to do with the real massacre that happened moments later. It only expresses the assumption, that they probably will not be able to land out of it. But that does make the approach neither unsafe nor illegal.

it does´not matter even if they knew. The aircraft also flies in fog and clouds, in thunderstorms and in crosswinds. It is not made out of sugar or quits when it sees fog. As mentioned before, weather forecast and actual weather, ground visibility and inflight visibbility are not the same. The whole aviation functions like thatnd uses weather forecasts as an information for planning, not for inhibiting flying at all, nothing new there.

That is your point of view, which suits your overall aim, but has nothing to do with reality and nothing to do with facts. Even in wartime there would be no suicide mission ordered nor followed. As a soldier you always calculate your risk and look, wether you can handle it.


To fly there? sure not. It was an order. Would be totally knew to me that soldiers can fly around on their own ideas.


That depends on what is seen as their predicament. To fly there and do an approach, either land out of it or go around and go to the alternate or home again is normal business for a aircrew. Why should they not like it? Well there are missions of more or less fun, maybe that one promised less fun than others.

I did and it was no hard work for me, also it is sensless, because you are repeating yourself again and again like a broken CD.

Again Pilot talk. The weather looks better down there now, may be it will not be difficult at all to land. That is my interpretation.

I know how it would have happened in reality.
General comes in the cockpit and says: Dear friend, the president has to land there by all means, so you bring that bird down on the ground asap in one piece and dont tell me that it is not possible.......

Soldiers and especially Generals with subordinate soldiers prefer a clear and understandable language, they give orders and dont talk in lyrics or secrets free to different interpretations.

Now show me this order on the CVR and i believe you.


Exactly my point. Soldiers know when they are at war and when they have to act close to being suicidal, but not in peacetime, neither as general nor as aircrew.

They did´t ask any crazy crap, a fully qualified aircrew not doing a haystack full of mistakes together with a not up to the notch ATC on a junkyard airfield would have had no problems with the order (flying from A to B and doing an approach for the purpose of landing if possible or going around and do something different).

The mistakes killed them and the passengers, and you have to ask them how they developped, why nobody noticed them, and how to prevent them in future. In my opinion it points to a big leadership problem.

But those questions do not suit the aim of SadPole unfortunately, therefore he is not interested in them.

franzl