dvv

ARRAKIS, if you're a pilot, and you want to find a decent job with a US airline, you'd better not have speeding tickets or police reports of you beating your wife. "Good moral character" is a very real requirement.

RockShock

The delay is because of the display problem in Tu-154 not because of political tampering with the report.
Those are bold words my dear friend and please explain why you paint the picture of our country so far from the reality. Sure, there are different affairs caused by friends of friends solving some problems illegally, but not to a greater extent than in any other civilised country - why are you so willingly painting a dire and untrue picture of Poland - I cannot understand. And please, to support your argument, tell me which party the members of the commision belong to (list the names and party allegiance). You are throwing big words without support, so prove the allegiations you make.

It's not a big discovery that the military of an ex-communist country has a backlog of huge problems with mentality, attitude and the top-brass. However, this is not primary/main cause of the accident - the primary cause of accident in discussion is probably failure of the crew due to mistakes they made. Not sure why you add to this the untrue mafia-government stories...

Show me proofs how the investigation findings were influenced by politicians or stop telling this non-sense all over again. You base your info on separated, eye-catching misinforming newsparer cuts instead of shutting up and waiting till the report is released. I understand you want to create here an impression upfront, that the report should be not even looked upon by this forum's community, but you were shown in this thread many times that you misinform, mistranslate and pick the information as you please - far from painting the complete and relevant picture.

I know about the error in Tu-154M, you failed to say that the Tu-154 didn't 'break down' as you wrote, but has a minor display problem that causes it not available for the HEAD flights, but still able to do lower-priority flights. And the information was confirmed by spokesman of the PAF. I don't know why the chief of the squadron was not aware of the error but dont construct big theories of political messing with the situation out of a fact that a guy doesn't know about this display issue (which he should know, obviously - but that points to a system issue with information flow, but not tampering with investigation)

Luckily for us we are a democratic country and this are families that have their theories and they are allowed to have any theories they want, as long as this is not influencing the report findings. You may be right that they want to influence the report, which is natural, but this doesn't mean their remarks will be taken into account - you again refuse to wait for the report and judge upfront.
This may be 'retarded' (strong word though), but is nothing illegal. The families, as all of us, can have their opinion and voice it as we have a freedom of speech and every non-sense can be published (which your posts are the best proof of). So, don't try to shut up anyone's mouth and don't mix the agenda of certain politicians with the report for which we are all anxiously waiting. If the report will be influenced by the families etc, I'll buy you a pint myself, but why on earth are you making so much noise before it's published.

Golf-Sierra

Not sure what the law here is, but I would not be surprised if the families' civil rights were protected to some extent.

A fact such as (and I am just making this up): "We cannot identify who sat in the 8th row. The briefcase found in the overhead bin above row 8 contained Mr X's passport and a receipt for lingerie which was found matching to the one found on Mrs Y's body. This suggest that Mr X, Mrs Y or both of them were sitting in row 8." could be placed in the report. Now an investigator might actually be proud of such attention to detail and depth of analysis - but the families of Mr X and Mrs Y might find it is damaging. They may request this detail to be ommitted, rephrased or perhaps they will wish to provide an explanation "Mrs X and Mrs Y were friends and went shopping together" depending on the relevance of the detail to the crash.

The investigation is bound to uncover many rather embarassing issues concerning the 36th sq. I am sure the commander is staying as far away from the investigation as possible (other than as a witness) - out of his own self interest at this point in time, perhaps he is even under direct orders to not interfere. Any communication along the Commision -> Squadron Leader line would be a feast for the tabloids so best to keep him in the dark. So yes - it is politics.


Golf-Sierra

Alice025

"It's not a big discovery that the military of an ex-communist country has a backlog of huge problems with mentality, attitude and the top-brass."

I don't find this an entirely correct observation, re "attitude", for example.
Poland surely is a cut away piece, with own trends and development path, but here in Russia quality standards fell through the floor after USSR was cancelled. Way too many things became profitable, suddenly :o), when done lax and loose and when cheated about. We acquired capitalism without any system of checks and balance to it, and are suffering from the condition. To explain myself better; when you are paid 200 roubles whatever you do, you tend to follow state standards and your job description, and put state standard amount of cement into the mix , to build a wall of the building. Because why bother and cheat and add sand instead ;o), when neither yourself nor the management of your building company, not a single person you know for thousands kilometres around literally :o) - will ever be able to make a profit on such cheating.
The mentality to change labels on outdated foods in supermarket is a new mentality here entirely. Likewise the mentality to sell falsified medications in pharmacies. Likewise the mentality to BUY diploma-s, etc. etc. No one heard a word of such things in USSR before, one couldn't imagine in wild dreams. I deeply believe now that humanity is not such inherently defective as some like to describe, with vices and all, because we have been experimenting here for quite a long while ;o), and, honestly, when left alone and not to bother about symbolical anyway salary nevermind if you are performing bad or well - majority performs well and do not cheat. Still unclear why ;o)
I think it helps when you can't profit theoretically from doing something badly. The reverse side of the coin is the absence of stimulus doesn't drive one much for creativity and improvements to the process. But provided a bridge, say, is built strictly and non-creatively to state standars defined to the 6th digit after the coma, by the boring book, it is still a better bridge than the one from which all cement has been stolen.

Tonden

Alice,

I cannot really comment on the situation in Russia.

In Poland the communist system (or communist bosses, if you want) was stealing huge money from the people. So everyone thought it is OK. to cheat the system/state as well. The result was, the majority was cheating the state for those tiny profits that made the daily lives a little bit better.

With the fall of the old system suddenly the potential profits became huge...

Alice025

Lucky you, Tonden, if they were money at all, to steal by the communist bosses ;o). In Russia all was very poor, which is no wonder when up to 80% of country's turnover are spent to compete military with the USA, it's a huge drain on the society. Anyone else smaller would have become bankrupt far earlier. Plus keeping all the regimes agreeing to be called communistic worldwide, because FOC absolutely no one agreed to :o) , and alone you look total idiots, going against the world tendencies :o) Surely here the communistic bosses stole as well, to the amount of 1/billionth of a daily catch of one modern boss, the biggest theft as I remember discovered so far were diamond rings and earings of Brezhnev's daughter. And personal cars and drivers, and special food shops !!! behind high fences, for the top party leaders. Where they secretely bought their caviar and sausages and banana unavailable in ordinary shops.
:o)))))))

gstaniak

However, it really is best translated as "by all means" and nothing in the VCR track published by MAK with the flight reconstruction video suggests any kind of sarcasm or second meaning to this phrase, or that, as RetiredF4 said, "this is just your wording". That's the best translation. It was an honest, even a bit eager, friendly suggestion of "by all means you can try though", followed by information about the APM lights, advice about diverting to Moscow after two failed attempts etc.

RetiredF4

@gstaniak

Please read the above sentence again, and you will see that it uses the same words as MAK, but without semicolons and with different arrangement of the words. That twists the meaning completely.


Quote gstaniak :
"No, natomiast powiem szczerze, że możecie spróbować, jak najbardziej"
it means: "Well, I'll honestly say, by all means, you can try". As in English, "by all means" is never used to really mean "by ALL means".
However, it really is best translated as "by all means" and nothing in the VCR track published by MAK with the flight reconstruction video suggests any kind of sarcasm or second meaning to this phrase, or that, as RetiredF4 said, "this is just your wording". That's the best translation. It was an honest, even a bit eager, friendly suggestion of "by all means you can try though", followed by information about the APM lights, advice about diverting to Moscow after two failed attempts etc.[/QUOTE]

That is the problem with languages, some have a punctuation and it has nothing to do with a better looking of the text, it changes the meaning of the whole sentence. But it probably got lost with all those g***le translators.

In the wording of MAK the phrase by all means is in between two semicolons,

"Well, I'll honestly say, by all means, you can try".

translated with different words but same meaning it would be something like :

Well, honestly, as best as i know, you can try.

Now you make a sentence without the semicolon out of it, and

"by all means you can try though", which could mean in other words

you could try it by all means, which is still far away from the implication, that it means "you should try it by all means"

Now you can labor over it, but in plane words, it just tells nothing at all.

franzl

SadPole

So, now you are an expert in Polish, and can teach us Polaks what something means in Polish because you used google translator? Now, that's funny.

But, we are pleased you are willing to learn. Start by pronoucing Grzegorz Brzęczyszczykiewicz, Chrząszczyżewoszyce powiat Łękołody.

aviatorhi

Well as a "Polak" I'll tell you this much. If someone told me "jak najbardziej" I still wouldn't take that to mean "by ALL means".

As a side note there's been talk of the cloud base being below 50m and 500m vis.

In the US on a commercial flight you can throw out the cloud bases assuming that visbility is sufficient, but on a private flight you can throw both out and still shoot the approach and "see what you can see", there would have been no problem, with them doing that. However, it seems to me that they attempted to "feel" their way in and didn't take into account the rising terrain immediatly before the airport. Which tells me that they odviously descended below the minimums of the approach in order to make ground contact, which many would disapprove of. However my disapproval of their actions only lies in the fact that they weren't familiar with the environment they had descended into, and as such shouldn't have done so in the first place. Had they been familiar with the area there's a good chance that even if they had descended below minimums the accident would not have occured. Though it still wouldn't have been "legal".

SadPole

Meaning, we now get to redefine well known English idioms? "Jak najbardziej" = "for sure" "certainly" etc, as in exactly what that idiom means. See here:
by all means - definition of by all means by the Free Online Dictionary, Thesaurus and Encyclopedia.

If the idea to be expressed was to be – "use any means and land at all cost", they would say "Koniecznie ladujcie" and the proper English idiom would be: "land by ANY means". Both English and Polish are quite precise in that matter and it is rather silly to split hairs over that phrase.

I agree with everything else you say in your post. But the argument being presented was supposed to support thesis (promoted by Kaczynski supporters in Poland) that all they tried was descent to the decision height by the book and crashed only because Russian ATC misled them and because the Yak pilot helped to mislead them. They have attempted to remove Edmund Klich from his post only because he does not agree. So, that's the problem.

ARRAKIS

It was just an example of lack of logic.


RetiredF4,
I must say, I'm surprised seeing all this debate, as the words of the Yak's crew are clear, and not leaving any room for any interpretation, regardless of any punctuation, voice intonation, etc... Not here. Not this time.
"You can try".
There is no "by all means" (regardless of how we can understand that one) and not any "should". Not any imperative.
I would expect "you should not", but that's another story.

"spróbować" means to try/test/attempt/have a try/etc... unless someone is dyslexic or inhaled someting weird.

Arrakis

SadPole

Let's just translate that phrase as:

Nevertheless, it is stupid to claim that MAK mistranslated the phrase for some evil purpose, because once again:

"by all means" = "certainly"

So, if someone says: "Visit us, by all means" - he does not imply - we will hunt you down if you don't visit us.

gstaniak

Well, I do find it a bit funny too, being told what a phrase in my native language can or cannot mean. Obviously, I'm not suggesting (I think nobody is) that the Yak crew somehow tried to convey a literal meaning of the English "ALL means", in the sense of "do whatever you like however you like with no limits" etc. But the one best translation of "jak najbardziej" still is "by all means". And the phrase with the following sentences is a clear encouragement to perform an approach, or rather two, in fact. There is also nothing whatsoever in the VCR track that could be read as sarcasm, conveying a second meaning, joking etc. Just a young, rather eager sounding voice passing a friendly advice.

WojtekSz

what is exactly the instrument in 102 that is missing the right colors so it cannot be used for HEAD flights but still be used for other flights?
Could it mean that the report is getting so harsh for the Polish side that the government is trying to find an excuse to publish it after the celebration and not before? For purely HUMAN reasons.

aviatorhi

Maybe you didn't read what I said, if someone said "jak najbardziej" to me, I wouldn't construe that to mean it's a "do or die" scenario.

SadPole

It's about the TAWS display. It's too dim or something like that. So they are testing how the crew completely ignored the TAWS and they need completely bright screen for ignoring it.

Many people already refer to it as the Monty Python Flying Circus.

Yes. And Kaczynski side now implies that the report is delayed so it is used to influence the parliamentary elections.

This is why all sane Poles just want to see all the raw data - like the allegedly completely deciphered transcript, so all that politicking ends.

Big part of the problem is that Poland does not have a tradition of independent investigative bodies that exist separately from the party currently in power.

RetiredF4

Poor soul,
i´m no expert at all on polish language. And also i´m not native in english, i´m pretty familiar with it, i think a bit more than you are.

I´m comenting on the phrase of the official MAK-report which is:

You twist this translation tu suit yourself into " you can (should) try by all means.

Do you mistrust the translation of MAK report into the correct english wording and sentence?

To use your wording:

"By all means, visit us", has a differet meaning to "visit us by all means".

Nobody is doubting the direct translation of "by all means". but in the context of a sentence it makes the difference between the live or die meaning you are trying to construct and the sentence of the MAK english version.

If you now tell me, that MAK did a wrong translation to english, then go ahead. It adds up to your long list of assumptions.

franzl

SadPole

No, I am showing that those who try to say this MAK translation is wrong because it could mean that they said "try by ALL means" with some alleged stress on ALL have absolutely no clue what idiom "by all means" means in English or what the original phrase in Polish means.

You can stress ALL all you want, add punctuation all you want, and it still won't mean anything other than what it always meant.

Please look it up, and find out the difference between:
try by all means
and
try by any means

by all means - definition of by all means by the Free Online Dictionary, Thesaurus and Encyclopedia.


English is not completely logical language, but we don't get to invent our own meanings of established idioms just to suit some silly notions and claim biased translations. Every time someone does that, I think of Clinton discussing "what is the meaning of is" when the question was sex with the intern.

Kulverstukas

Well, I'll honestly say, by all means, one can try not to forget that МАК report was made primary in Russian and for Polish side in Polish (approved by some polish language experts, I belive). English translation was made for all other world sake and doesn't used for analysis.