ARRAKIS

Lena, this is pure BS (the cockpit visit).

Regarding busting the minimas, we had that day 4 approaches (1xYak-40, 2xIl-76 and 1xTu-154). All four of them below minima. It says a lot about how things were going on that day.
The transcript of the tapes from the ATC is also a quite interesting reading.

Lena.Kiev

Lets wait closer to the elections in Poland when publication of entire transcript from the voice recorder was promised.

Karel_x

Of course. Tens of millions felt victory and putting off their irons, another tens of millions felt a loss of their homeland and roots. Life is not b/w. Sorry for o/t.

Lena:
Do you mean that Polish transcription of CVR will be different from transcription of MAK?

Lena.Kiev

Fragments of transcription embedded into this Polish report and annexes to it already are significantly different from the version of transcription of CVR Poles got from MAK and published.

ARRAKIS

Lena, nothing personal, but your theory is on the same level as the artificial fog.
The President had onboard members of his staff and PAF commander who was, we may say, his protege. He wasn't going to storm into the cockpit and discuss anything with a simple captain. I will not mention things like the chain of cammand. Sorry, but there is no mystery here.

I have something else.
It was easy to hear the GA form the FO on the CVR, but in the case of the PIC, phonoscopic analysis was needed. Why? The placement of the microphones in the cockpit is symmetrical.
Arrakis

RegDep

Are you saying that he was frozen, Arrakis? Is that what you say?

Lena.Kiev

He did when he wanted to fly to Tbilisi during the war. Protasiuk was there, he was the FO then.

This time Lech didn't have to say anything. He just was greeted by cockpit crew.

ARRAKIS

Who was standing/sitting behind him in the cockpit?


No Lena, you've got it completely wrong. By the way - and we know it for sure - he wasn't greeted by the PIC but by gen. Blasik. Sorry, but you are going here wrong way.

Arrakis

Lena.Kiev

That's before the flight. I'm talking about during the last 30 min of flight, in cockpit (recorded on CVR).

ARRAKIS

If you want to belive in the artifical fog type stories it's up to you. I explained already why it is pure nonsense.
EOT on the subject for me.

Arrakis

SINGAPURCANAC

I will have a few questions,for those better informed.

How the hell happened that unit(36 sq) located in Warsawa, was undersftuffed with pilots?

shouldn't there were a long waiting list....???

Is it allowed in Polish air force, for classmates(i.e pilots from the same academy generation) to fly together?

it was possible to go direct from Academy to "elitte" transportation squadron?)(without previous loosing of medical fitness for combat or training squadrons)

these questions aren't cause of course but I am curious to get answers.
from my experience those issues, immediattely take my attention.( Pilots were my generation and they got a "premium job" at capital and furthermore was allowed to fly presidental flight as a captain??? )

gstaniak

@LandIT
Why not meaningful preparations and planning for the Presidential visit?

Actually, it wasn't a "presidential visit". Kaczyński hadn't been invited to pay a visit by an equivalent rank official on the Russian side (unlike the prime minister, who visited Katyn three days before), and Polish diplomats had some hard time finding a formula to classify this flight. Eventually, they called it "a pilgrimage" to the graves of murdered Polish soldiers. The President was certainly aboard, but it was a "private", unofficial visit. Polish diplomats even considred it a success that one ministerial-rank official was present, so that a head of a state wasn't going to be greeted by local municipal-level officials only. And the Russian side a) agreed to provide a "leader" (supplementary navigator) for the aircraft, after the Polish requested his/her presence -- however, the request was withdrawn later; and b) twice offered the much safer, international airport in Briansk (equipped with ILS) for the landing, but the Polish side refused the offers as they considered it "obstructing access to Katyn for the Polish delegation".

The scale of the tragedy was futher increased by the presence of so many VIPs on board of one aircraft, which can hardly be blamed on Russians.

I'm in no position to judge the work of Russian ATC, but even if they weren't exactly being professional, both reports and other sources confirm they didn't take their situation lightly -- on the contrary, there was much anxiety and nervousness, and they actually went beyond their line of duty trying to secure an alternative airport for the Polish machine in case weather conditions kept deteriorating.

I fail to see how the Russian side may be blamed for failures and mistakes at the organizational stage of this flight, when they were in no way involved in the preparations for the visit.

gstaniak

@Lena.Kiev
The president visited the cockpit shortly before landing in order to pressure the crew to land

Actually, he didn't. Neither of the reports mentions this in any place. The guy who visited the cockpit and asked about the landing situation was one of the presidential personnel. You're confusing the Smolensk flight with the earlier flight to Georgia, when Kaczynski tried to order the crew to land in Tbilisi (the PIC fom Smolensk was the second pilot then).

Lena.Kiev

Lets wait (closer to the elections in Poland) for entire transcript from CVR. This Polish committee deliberately published only excerpts. The version from MAK Poles published was preliminary.

Lena.Kiev

Page 14 of English translation of the Polish report:Page 228:Six seconds later was 06:40:51. So, after 06:40:51, the flying pilot decided to increase the rate of descent. By turning AP's wheel (like a mouse wheel) under PIC's right arm. And at 06:40:52 the same PIC allegedly commanded go-around. While MAK's CVR transcript has neither such command nor a note of an unintelligible speech at that time. Can somebody explain this?

I have one explanation: the Polish committee invented (falsified) "go-around" words of the PIC.

msmfi

Lena,
The CVR transcript's elements presented in polish version are based on slightly different time scale - are shifted by 1.5 seconds comparing to the transcript published by MAK. Compare the timestamps of TAWS and ABSU "events".
The PIC's command "Odchodzimy" ("Go around"), in polish report, is marked with timestemp "06:40:52" and indeed is not present in the MAK version.
When refering to timestemps from MAK report the PIC's command should be placed around "10:40:49,5" timestemp, to immediately follow FO (2nd pilot) comment "W normie" ...
The other thing is that You can't hear PIC voice on the any of the "reconstructions", as published by both MAK and polish side ... (See YouTube)
When FO's "Odchodzimy" ("Go around") from 10:40:50,5--51,2 (by MAK) was loud and distinct.

Lena.Kiev

I know.No "нрзб" (unintelligible) there.

Again: how could the PIC to turn the controlling wheel towards descent and at the same time or earlier to say "go around"?

msmfi

Lena,
>> Again: how could the PIC to turn the controlling wheel towards
>> descent and at the same time or earlier to say "go around"?

Do You refer to Figure 25 in (english version of) MAK's final report ?
So far my understanding of the "negative" value of "Control column position" was "pull" ... Was I wrong ?

Lena.Kiev

I refer to quoted by me words and times from the Polish report.

Karel_x

Indeed it is little suspicious. From the begining the words of 2nd pilot are discussed, but appearing the command of captain is very suprised. It looks litle like trick to to prove that there was no pressure to land from VIP pax. Poles need to clean their exponents.