SummerLightning

Alice, I largely agree with your analysis, except that the USA did of course have to tolerate Ahmadinejad landing on their soil and speaking at the UN in New York. At a diplomatic level, all countries have to grin and bear it on occasions.
What was striking to me, however, was the response of the Russian government to this incident. In spite of Kachinsky's often intemperate statements, it seemed to me that the warmth and sympathy extended to the Polish people by Medvedev, Putin and other ministers was genuine and appropriate, as was the commitment to cooperate with the enquiry.
If this accident is allowed to become another chapter in the troubled history between the two countries, it will be an even worse tragedy.

ARRAKIS

I already wrote, what I think about that pressure theory. In my opinion, from the Polish side it made the difference between diverting directly after entering RF airspace, and doing an approach to XUBS (not landing!). We have it loud and clear in the CVR transcript. "We will do one approach, and if not, we will divert".
From the Russian side, elements of the pressure are visible in the ATC transcript.
As there was no direct contact between Moscow and XUBS, they used Transaero crew, that was flying by, to contact Smolensk ATC and get weather information from them. During PLF101 - Moscow ATC communication, there wasn't a word about weather conditions. Let Smolensk military deal with the problem. Not closing the airport - Russian AIP/Aviation Code allows to do it for meteoroligical conditions threatening flight safety. Another element of that pressure was, IMHO, XUBS ATC letting the aircrafts go below MDA. I already posted a translation of the Il-76 second approach.
Let's make top brass on both sides happy.

On more element, which I don't remember seeing here and for obvious reasons haven't seen it in MAK's report, as it doesn't fit the picture. During so called Tbilisi flight/incident, when PIC refused to fly, cpt. Protasiuk (F/O during that flight) become the "target" of a direct pressure from the late president. He also refused to fly.

Arrakis

Ptkay

Arrakis, what is your point?

Have you expected, that the F/O, against the will of the crew commander
and without his participation would execute the take off, flight,
and landing ALONE....

Give me a break...

Are you really a pilot?

RegDep

Come on Ptcay, be a sport.

I didn't need to know ARRAKIS' "pilot's license number" to see his point:

Protasiuk had been a party under the Presidential pressure long before the Smolensk flight, as he was a member of the crew in the "Tbilisi Flight" (the FO) and in its aftermath. That is an interesting element for us to understand Protasuk's state of mind /mindset. All that said, we do not know how, if at all, it was a factor in the sequence of events.

Reg.

Ptkay

RegDep, point taken.

Here something more on Blasik role in the cockpit:

:: Tygodnik "NIE" w internecie ::

I admit, "NIE" (no) is kind of Daily Mail, but with some
traits of WeakiLeaks. They have a nice record of leaking some
very substantial and important information in the past.

Google T?umacz

Google translation sucks, but you will get the point.
Unfortunately I have no time to translate more:

General Błasik the Tu-154 was not a passenger, but the flight was
registered as a check flight for the crew.
He was in command in the cockpit.

RegDep

Ptkay

Interesting. I think here SadPole and maybe somebody before him early in this thread scored a point by drawing our attention to the short-lived info on the Regiment's website that there were five crew members on board .

ARRAKIS

Ptkay,
I think RegDep explained it already. Try to keep the information in the context it was given.
Buy the way, you've just assumed, there was a line, the pilot wouldn't cross, even under the pressure. That was my point.

Arrakis

SadPole

The only problem is that you find one line in that CVR, quote it imprecisely and ignore everything else. That might have been the crew's plan, but it most likely got changed later.

That was said while they were waiting on decision from "main passanger" that Kazana was supposed to bring. That was the crew's plan stated while waiting for that decision of the "main passanger".

then:

Then at 10:36:36 some new mystery passenger appears in the cockpit, they all greet him, and they clearly have the decision and they are trying to land without ever discussing any decision height and without trying to act on one. Yes or no?

The alternate chosen (if they got one) would have to be said by name, while decision to land could have been communicated through a number of hard to identify phrases and/or gestures. So, if they did not get that alternate, what decision did they get?

You must be a spokesman for the Kaczynski camp here, or something to treat all the known facts so selectively.

ARRAKIS

It was 8 (counting with cabin crew).

Arrakis

RegDep

My dear ARRAKIS,

Actually no.

The Regiment reported 4 cabin crew, too (probably because they were counting the security person as one of their own, who knows?)

http://www.pprune.org/rumours-news/4...ml#post6189097

So, it was 9 .

Best
Reg

ARRAKIS

I remember from regiment's web pages first the number of 8 crew members, which later changed to 4+3 information. The number 8 appeared also on Russian documents from the first meeting, from the night 10/11th of April.
MAK's report gives 4+3 + 88 pax + 1 security officer (from published information we know, they were more than that).

Anyway, I think the discussion between PIC and F/O is quite clear.

Arrakis

Ptkay

I mentioned also several times here, that the number of cockpit crew was mentioned 5 on this web page. Nobody cared to listen.

This + 1 security officer was the girl, who was trained stewardess
at the same time. They counted the rest of SO as passengers.

I fully agree.

I slowly start to apprehend why the "Miller Commission" report will be even
harder on Polish military than MAK.

Everybody complains that Russians didn't give us access to all of their
documents, but we also didn't give them access to the 36th papers.

If there is any material trace of the fact, that the flight was registered as
a check flight by Blasik to clock the hours, than the embarrassment
and shame will be even bigger, than the 0.06% found by MAK.

It was embarrassing enough, that almost 50 officers from the "elite"
36th were charged, and some of them already found guilty of falsifying
the hotels bills and flight documents to extra cash in on their missions...

Sad Pole indeed, I am...

ARRAKIS

Nobody commented it. That's different.

We will see.

Has it anything to do with the topic of this thread? Maybe next time we will discuss who went to bed with whom?

Arrakis

SadPole

Just in.

Polish report that was supposed to be published beginning of February delayed at least another 6 weeks. What a surprise.

Official reason - the second Tu-154 that they need for simulating the conditions of the flight broke down. Yet, the commander of the 36th does not know anything about the Tu-154 breaking down.

Meanwhile, massive interference with report by the families of the (key) victims. According to their lawyers, they have a right to see it before everyone else and change it if it does not suit them. How is that for "independent" report?

This whole thing is becoming a bigger joke every day.

RockShock

You knew it all the way before, didn't you. And yes, you warned us all that this will happen!

What's the source of the information you refer to (especially the part about commander?)

What's the source of this information?

Ptkay

Yes, it has.
It shows the level of integrity and "honour" of the Polish officers.
There is nothing like "petty crime".
Crime is a crime.
Once the thin line between honest and honourable, and little petty crook
is crossed, the way is open for disregarding any rules...

And it shows also the salaries level of the said officers, if they felt
it is necessary to do such things and risk those salaries
to repair their budget.

Sorry, but just my 0.02$.

Tonden

Source

There seems to be a problem with the "display color" of one of the instruments. Obviously the readings are correct but the commission insists they can't use the plane for the test. This seems to be the reason why the commander said, he was not aware of any problems with the plane.

SadPole

Yes, as I said many times before, I knew it all along because in present day Poland pilots, investigators, soldiers, judges etc are some party members or lackeys first and pilots, investigators, soldiers, judges second.

That, in my view, is the primary systemic fault that caused the crash and causes numerous other problems. Without trying to fix that problem things are only going to get worse.

Politicized accident investigation or politicized plane piloting makes as much sense as say mathematics or physics politicized to suit some party line. We accuse Russians of doing that – as in Anodina cannot take a piss without Putin's permission – and yet we appear to be much worse in that regard.

All news in Poland, all media, all channels. Example here:

Same with the interference by the families. They already assume the report is completely biased and want to see it and suppress it before anybody else sees it:

See here

To repeat – the accident report is NOT for families to shape and bend it to fit their needs. It is extremely retarded to even imply that they should have a right to interfere with it.

And, according to them Klich and others are biased because they don't buy that ATC completely at fault, artificial fog stories, etc. Kaczynski already stated that if he were Prime Minister he would send the "state services" after all experts who say pilots might have made some mistakes.

ARRAKIS

Mr Smith likes speeding on the motorway, so he is beating his wife. That's your logic.

Arrakis

SadPole

You are spinning things again. The allegations are that they not only defrauded money but also falsified documentation for their licenses and permits.

So yes, you might argue that a shoplifting cop can still be a good cop, but there also are allegations that those particular pilots falsified their qualifications and so did their (allegedly drunk) commander. Would you try to spin that?