
No Survivors in Crash of Flight Carrying Polish Leader - kmod
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/11/world/europe/11poland.html
======
viraptor
The article lists only the most important people. But that's a very short
list, as there were many more involved (full list in PL is here:
[http://wiadomosci.gazeta.pl/Wiadomosci/1,80273,7752563,Prezy...](http://wiadomosci.gazeta.pl/Wiadomosci/1,80273,7752563,Prezydenckim_Tu_154_lecialy_najwazniejsze_osoby_w.html)):
There were ~60 people from the government, and ~20 more representatives of
army, church and other organisations.

~~~
kunley
Actually whole leadership of the army. And the chief of the national bank.

~~~
herdrick
So ironic and bizarre that they were on their way to commemorate the Katyn
massacre. This is like a small-scale Katyn.

~~~
swombat
With the notable difference that, as far as we know, this particular massacre
wasn't ordered by a Russian dictator...

As far as we know...

------
kwitek
"The Polish president had been due in western Russia to commemorate the
anniversary of the murder of thousands of Polish officers by the Soviet Union
at the beginning of World War II.

The ceremonies were to be held at a site in the Katyn forest close to
Smolensk, where 70 years ago members of the Soviet secret police executed more
than 20,000 Polish officers captured after the Soviet Army invaded Poland in
1939."

It is worthwhile to emphasize these two paragraphs from the article, since
presidency of the late president Kaczyński, among other things, has put great
importance on reminding about Polish victims of Soviet totalitarianism. He
insisted on commemorating the memory of victims of Sovet invasion on Poland,
after the Germany, on 17.09.1939, as well as of Soviet occupation after 1945,
when Russians defeated Germany in that part of Europe and replaced them in the
role of the occupier. Memory about this victims has been prohibited until
1989, when Poland finally regained its political sovereignty.

------
swombat
Many companies have policies about not putting more than X senior executives
in the same plane... Don't countries have those too?

What happens if Airforce One crashes with the president and his whole cabinet
on board? (wait, wasn't there a season of 24 about that?)

~~~
viraptor
There was already a problem with that before. In 2008 leaders of Poland,
Ukraine, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia wanted to fly in one plane to Gruzia.
There was some arguing with the pilot who was refusing to fly in that
situation (landed in Azerbaijan instead to maintain minimum of security). Yet,
they do it again. Even if there is no policy against it, there will be in a
month...

~~~
jeremyswank
for people who might not know, in English, Gruzia is the Republic of Georgia

------
st4lz
Belarussian aircraft informed crew about tough conditions in Smolensk airport
- rather old, soviet military airfield - which after that was closed in case
of heavy fog and the plane redirected to Minsk or Moscow. Unfortunately, the
pilots decided to land anyway, even though three approaches to landing failed.

In fact Tu-154 was aged, but after solid and expensive modernization. For now
it looks like a mistake of a pilot connected with really bad weather
conditions.

~~~
adrianwaj
_in a thick fog, did not reach the runway but instead hit the treetops and
fell apart_

Bad avionics. A Boeing would've been alright.

~~~
maigret
You can't tell before an extensive investigation will have been done. Was the
ILS active? Were there some navigation instrument failing? Was there a
mechanical problem at this time on the aircraft? Was it just some human error
(involved in 80% of aircraft accidents)? It's just too early to draw
conclusions.

~~~
jwr
There is no ILS at this airport. That was a visual approach with almost zero
visibility.

These aircraft are old, but have received extensive maintenance and upgrades,
so a mechanical failure isn't likely. What you have to remember, though, is
that a Tu-154 does not climb as well as a modern jet. So an aborted landing is
much more dangerous, as you don't have enough engine power to climb quickly.

The pilot made four landing attempts (these are the best of pilots, so I
suspect he was told to), the last one being fatal. Also, I don't expect a sane
pilot to try to make a turn at low altitude right after an aborted landing, so
the stories about the plane being in a turn probably mean the plane was
already in a stall and falling.

Also, the runway at this airport is very short for the Tu-154 even at the best
of times, so the pilot would have to touch down at the very beginning of the
runway. In a dense fog that is extremely difficult.

It's a sad day. We might never know what really happened on board, but I
strongly suspect that the pilots did not want to proceed and that either the
presidential staff or one of the generals on board told the pilots to land
anyway.

~~~
maigret
I had the opportunity to discuss that with a pilot who uses to land in Russia
in different airports and explained us NDB landings in Russia. The pilot made
only one landing attempt that failed, the other ones are the standard
procedure in Russia where ATC take you down step by step in the traffic
pattern - make you flight 3 or 4 circuits round over the runway. Also the
captain didn't have much hours of flights compared to his years of experience
- a common pattern in the east countries who don't have much money for
military aircrafts expenses. It looks like a flying error at the end, he maybe
have turned over the trees (probably because the NDB wasn't on the runway
centerline), and was too low too early... Investigation will tell more
hopefully.

------
steve19
My condolences to the people of Poland.

------
est
There is an interesting article from Xinhua, China, 2008

[http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=zh-
CN&tl=en&...](http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=zh-
CN&tl=en&u=http://news.qq.com/a/20080515/000697.htm)

~~~
swombat
Not very helpful to post an article in Chinese...

~~~
est
Replaced the link with Google Translate.

I confess I was lazy.

~~~
swombat
Cheers!

Interesting indeed. In summary: they knew the plane they were flying had
problems, was hard to fly, dangerous, etc, and numerous pilots refused to fly
it because of those issues, but they kept using it to save money. This is an
article from May 2008.

------
patrickgzill
Shades of Ron Brown's (Commerce Secretary under Clinton) last plane ride.
Certain folks in Russia would have had plenty of reasons to cut off the head
of Poland's government.

~~~
kunley
This is quite complicated matter here in Poland.

President Kaczyński was one of few our politicians who didn't wanted too many
compromises with Russia. There was a tendency of not taking him seriously, as
he had a harsh tongue for a politician and was generally considered a bit
paranoid. But he actually was one of the few in Europe who actively opposed to
Russian involvement in 2008 Georgia/Osetia conflict and was trying to reveal
the tracks that the conflict might have been secretly escalated by Russia in
the first place.

In our country people tend to know well how Russia government uses the policy
of hiding or denying the facts. They used it when tsars ruled, then again
during the communism, and again these times. Regardless of what really
happened during today's crash, they will make obstacles to investigate it
while pretending to be helpful.

Don't get me wrong, I know and like many Russian folks in person, but still
their government is one of the crappiest (and most dangerous), by the
standards of western democracies.

~~~
kunley
Looks like I've been wrong predicting Russia reaction:

<http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/LDE63A08I.htm>

Fortunately!!

------
fexl
Vladimir Putin will lead the investigation:

[http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/04/10/2869413.htm?se...](http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/04/10/2869413.htm?section=world)

------
ig1
Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they're
evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. Videos of pratfalls or disasters,
or cute animal pictures. If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-
topic.

~~~
swombat
I think the self-decapitation of a country's government through poor flight
arrangements/policy is an interesting new phenomenon. Do you know of another
occasion when a country basically lost most of its senior politicians and army
general in the blink of an eye? Even at war this doesn't tend to happen.

~~~
adrianwaj
I hope for the sake of the people of Iran, Israel and freedom-loving people
everywhere, that rigged instrumentation or autopiloting can be placed on board
official Iranian air transport.

What does Ahmadinejad fly? Are they fitted with special or standard avionics?
Can something be prepared equipment-wise as pulled from the same type of
aircraft, modified, and then swapped when he has landed in a foreign country
or else on Iranian soil?

In Die Hard II the bad guys re-calibrated sea level -200 feet below the real
ground level and one plane crashed straight into it...
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s6EfN4W2z0c>

