Pizzojad

Well,
You have found good time to ask this question.
First of all, in the day of report publication there was also announced resignation of the defence minister.
Today PM has announced that following persons will be dismissed:
- Czeslaw Piatas (Deputy Minister in the ministry of defence)
- Director of the Department of Inspection in the ministry of defence
- Director General of the Ministry of Defence
- MajGen Anatol Czaban (Chief of General Staff Assistant for Air Force Affairs, in 2007-2010 Air Forces Chief of Training)
- MajGen Leszek Cwojdzinski (Air Forces Chief of Training)
- MajGen Zbigniew Galec (Deputy Commander of Polish Operations Command)
- 10 other officers

Beside of that: 36 SPLT will be disbanded.
It was also mentioned that it is only beginning of changes.

WHBM

BBC News - Smolensk air crash: Poland sacks top military officers

Poland uses theories in plane crash probe - Russia — RT

MountainBear

I am not surprised to read that the Russians are upset about criticism of their ATC. It's not the first time. Anyone remember Armavia Flight 967.

Frankly, it mystifies me. Overall, I think that Russia has grown a lot in recent years in terms of its accident investigations and they deserve credit for that. I think the way they handled this investigation was credit worthy....except for ATC issues. For some reason any criticism of Russian ATC is off limits. I don't know why. It just is.

The way I see it the Russians just can't seem to draw a distinction between violations of international norms and professionalism. The behavior of ATC in this case didn't represent the highest standards of the profession. That doesn't mean they are to blame. But try pointing that out to the Russian and watch them get angry. Flight 967 is another good example. The behavior of ATC in that case was not professional. It simply wasn't. Did this lack of professionalism cause Flight 967 to crash? No. But it still was unprofessional.

LandIT

IMO the Poles have done an amazingly thorough exhaustive job investigating their VIP Fight infrastructure. Such things as lack of pilots, lack of training, currency, equipment, procedures. An awful lot seems exposed. They also complained about lack of essential information from the Russian side, for their investigation, despite multiple repeated requests.

I believe the report concludes there are primarily a lot of Polish Air Force reasons for the crash, and some crew reasons as a result. The report does not hold back on these reasons and there are many recommendations. I imagine this has shocked the Polish establishment, leading to the sackings. One would not want to put VIP's at the ongoing risk that has been clearly exposed. One can say the VIP Wing shortcomings were the main reason for the crash, but...

IMO the report points to some major deficiencies in the Russian arrangements, begining with lack of cooperation in planning and early (or any) exchange of information for what was, after all, a Presidential visit. I get the feeling from the report that a visit from a Russian President to Poland would have imperitively involved a hundred times the planning and effort that Russia put into the Polish visit.

So to specifics. It is very clear the PAF wasn't provided with good or current information about the airfield, or ATC. Its very clear there were scant if any preparations made there in case anything went wrong. Its very clear the approach had obstacles not meeting regulations. Its very clear the crew were misled by ATC calling on slope when it was marginal or off. Its very clear in those conditions it was a tragedy waiting to happen. Its very clear the Russians are responsible for those aspects. One can argue whether it should have made a difference but in the conditions of the day, it probably made a lot of difference. Even to the percentage survivability. A very questionable rescue operation. A very questionable investigation. We shall never know how it could have been different, perhaps.

And so, many Poles fall on their swords, perhaps victims, perhaps with justification. What of the other side? Have any lessons been learned there too? There is huge value in the Polish report. I am impressed.

Karel_x

to LandIT:
Both international (MAK) and polish committees found the cause of the disaster a descent under MDH. Maybe MAK covers russian deficiencies a little and contrarily Poles accent them. But non of them is the cause.
163 deficiencies are listed (most on polish side) in the polish final report, but they are not the cause. Some of them could be a contributing factors or conductive circumstances but the cause is absolutely clear.

(Polish definition of the cause: "the descent below the minimum descent altitude at an excessive rate of descent in weather conditions which prevented visual contact with the ground, as well as a delayed execution of the go-around procedure. Those circumstances led to an impact on a terrain obstacle resulting in separation of a part of the left wing with aileron and consequently to the loss of aircraft control and eventual ground impact.")
(Russian definition /shorted/: ...descent without visual contact with ground references to an altitude much lower minimum descent altitude for go around...)

LandIT

Oh yes, I already agreed. Anyone can see the aircraft went too low.

Now, to understand why?

Why not meaningful preparations and planning for the Presidential visit?
Why no current approach charts from the Russians, for a Presidential visit?
Why did the controller called down the glide slope as if it was OK?
Why has the airfield trees that were too high?
Why weren't the approach lights set up to regulations.
Why no real preparations in case anything went wrong, for a Presidential visit?
Why was there no designated alternate airport announced and planned?
Are we really convinced the rescue services were able to attend promptly.
Are we really convinced the crash investigation was proper, for a Presidential visit?

I think a few too many questions for the Russian side to be comfortable with, but that's just where I get my impressions from the Polish report. The results from the Polish side are a lot of senior people lose their jobs. I wonder if there will be any results from the Russian side.

Lena.Kiev

Poles were offered other nearby airports (Moscow and Minsk) with ILS and controllers speaking English. But that Polish president swore to never put his foot in Moscow and was in bad relations with president of Belarus (Minsk is the capital of Belarus). So, the president insisted on Smolensk despite warnings that the airport hasn't ILS and is almost defunct.The chart they were given the previous time is still correct for the only remaining landing course.Perhaps because of very old imperfect radar, and not very experienced controller who assumed that the presidential aircraft had much better equipment and competent crew, not these hackworkers. Also, have in mind that that was a hostile visit: to make a political show blaming and offending Russians.Did it really matter? Poles want to invent excuses to blame somebody other than themselves.Vandalized by local population (the airport is inside Smolensk city, the lights are near a city street, outside airport border). Not repaired because of lack of funds. In that fog the crew couldn't see the lights even if they'd work OK.The visit was hostile and unwanted.The crew announced Minsk and Vitebsk as alternates when asked by the controller. But the president didn't choose the alternate. Polish military crews serving VIPs had unwritten rule that the main passenger chooses the alternate. The president visited the cockpit shortly before landing in order to pressure the crew to land - pure politics (this Polish committee took care to not publish the whole transcript from the sound recorder). Then the drunk chief of air force remained in the cockpit until the crash.May be no. But that was a hostile visit.Poles desperately want to blame anybody but themselves. A Russian saying: "give them a finger, they'll chew off the whole arm". The Russian report tried to absolve the controller and radar technicians, the Polish report tries to absolve the president, the airforce chief and Americans who (in order to force users to buy supplemented airport database periodically) made manual addition to airport database in TAWS impossible, so false alarms from TAWS were guaranteed in that airport and thus ignored (wolf, wolf!).

Poles complain that they weren't given Russian military regulations and weren't allowed to participate in tests (with a Russian military test aircraft) of the landing radar, NDBs and other airport radio equipment. But have in mind that Poland deserted the military alliance with Russia and joined the adversary NATO. So, anything related to military is considered secret from the deserter and NATO member, even if just in spite. The airport is at least in part military, the controller crew military.

That Polish president pressed the crew to land because he was late to the political show at the graveyard in Katyn, i.e. he literally was in a hurry to the cemetry.

Bahrd

Lena.Kiev, I'm sorry to say that but you likely are the most zealous conspiracy theorist I have ever met on this site!

Lena.Kiev

Please specify exactly what you consider urban legends in my message.

vovachan

So what altitude info DID they use? The report says says they didn't use baro i nfo. If they were flying based on rad altimeter it seems like such a stupid mistake to make those guys deserve to be fired. Also the decision to use the automatic go-around which was unavailable must have cost them a few critical seconds

Lena.Kiev

The cockpit crew consisted of 4 members: two pilots, navigator and engineer. The airforce chief watched in the back of the cockpit. The navigator had read height aloud. The numbers he called (recorded by the voice recorder) match radio height recoded by the FDR. The baro altitude recorded by the FDR has too coarse granularity (max 256 possible digital values), but we know that the terrain under the glideslope is seriously uneven (hills and ravines), unlike more flat terrain Poles used to at home. Therefore, the numbers the navigator called couldn't be from baro, no matter what pressure might be set (everybody agrees that most baro altimeters had correct pressure set, just one of several PIC's baro altimeters - the one connected to TAWS - was set by PIC with a quick button press to the standard pressure much higher than QFE 4.5 seconds after the first TAWS alarm in order to shut up annoying TAWS alarms, because the PIC knew that false TAWS alarms were guaranteed at that airfield because the airport was absent from TAWS database). Baro altimeters were set to QFE, i.e. showed height relative to runway elevation (Soviet SOP, still used in Russia). In the last ravine baro height was negative (the runway is on a hill). So, we can be sure that unfortunately nobody looked at the baro altimeters (except the airforce chief earlier, but he said nothing in the ravine). The navigator called the radio height since height 300 meters, perhaps as he used to in the Yak-40 aircraft (smaller and able to climb steeper). I'm not sure whether to call radio height since 300 meters is described as SOP in the Yak-40 manual, but it's definitely not so in the Tu-154M manual.

The pilots (and their commanders) punished themselves with the capital punishment.

I think that they didn't press the (unarmed) automatic go-around button because the PIC intended to land and intentionally descended under the glideslope ("scud running"). He pulled the yoke when he at last unexpectedly saw trees ahead in the thick fog - too late because of too steep ascending slope of the last ravine.

Karel_x

Becouse pilot violate the most important safety rules - never attempt to land below the minimas, never descent below MDA /without visual reference/, never ignore PULL UP. Poor standards on Smolensk Nord Airport can be no more then contributing factors, never the cause. You are not profesionaln nor familiar in avionic, are you?
Lena, I can imagine that you have some reasons to hate Russia. But it is not much clever to blame them for all the evil in this world.

LandIT

Clearly this was CFIT by the crew as a cause. We are now seeing the repercussions in Poland. Besides cutting down a couple of trees are there any changes over the border.

The Polish report (I read the English version) details a huge number of factors leading to extremely deficient preparations for the flight (in fact any HEAD flight!). No wonder the senior officials sackings in Poland.

PacWest

Bahrd,

Lena's irony is simply delicious,

and, Karel. I think Lena gives equal blame for this accident to both the Russians and the Poles but from the beginning of this thread it has been rather obvious that the Polish Captain had been intimidated prior to departing Poland, hence he made the fateful decision to land at Smolensk.

by the way, Bravo Lena.

Passenger 389

Lena.Kiev, I appreciate your candor. There is a long history of animosity (and hostilities) between the Russian and Polish people, though this is not the place to debate which side is more at fault for that dark history.

What seems important is to recognize that deep-rooted biases--such as your statement above illustrates-- exist and may hinder fair consideration of the entire picture. Biases exist in nearly every culture. Awareness of one's own bias is an essential step toward overcoming it.

It appears to me that the Polish investigators properly assigned most of the blame to failings by the Polish Air Force, pilots, etc.

Yet to be a useful investigative report, it seems proper to consider all of the holes in the Swiss cheese, and what may have contributed to (or could have reduced the likelihood) of this tragedy. The report would be incomplete if it entirely excluded any deficiencies or potential contributing factors occurring on the Russian side, and recommendations on how such a tragedy might be averted in the future.

That doesn't mean the report is blaming Russia for what occurred.

Lena.Kiev

Why do you think so?? My native language is Russian, I consider USSR as my homeland. All my life I live in its part, now in the old capital of Russia (look up "Kievan Rus'" in Wikipedia). I very much regret that my homeland was stolen from me, torn asunder by hypocritical greedy and power-loving politicians. The Kaczyński brothers made their career on hating Russia - "divide and conquer". Most passengers of the crashed airplane hated Russia. They flew to make a political show (at a cemetery) of publicly hating Russia.

Ptkay

Not much to be added...

Ptkay

This exactly what happened.

The report quotes 163 mistakes by the crew and their unit.

Enough not for one, but couple dozens accidents...

Karel_x

Excuse me Lena, now I understand. You need not explain how painful was the dividing of USSR for milions of people.

Ptkay

Are you serious?

I don't think it was painful for Georgia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania
and many others, who regained freedom and independence
after decades of Russian suppression and occupation.

Maybe some of the people in Ukraine, especially Kiev, Eastern Ukraine,
think in a different way, but Western Ukraine felt liberated.

But you are right, for many Russians it was a disaster.

But I would suggest, we leave the politics out.

This is aviation forum.