Polish President and wife killed in Tu-154 crash

[Geebee]

And here we go again.

Whether we want it or not, this accident will always have a bitter aftertaste for the Polish people. Just for history's sake. No one denies this was a black day in Polish history.

From the accident point of view however, the facts are there and we should not ignore them. One of the facts not mentioned yet is that certain senior Polish military have been accused last week by Polish staff close to the investigation (Edmund Klich, head of the Polish investigation) of trying to place as much as possible the blame on the Russians. Indeed, not everyone in Poland is a conspiration theory advocate.

The draft report of the Russian investigation was handed over to the Poles at the end of October. The fact that there is such a fuss around it now is also influenced by the fact that the deadline for the response just expired (60 days).

If there were fog machines they were mainly imaginary. We should make ourselves a bit more familiar with Occam's razor as I indicated a couple of pages ago.

[guamainiac]

Gee and what do you think they would do if they found the runway all bright and shiny in front of them.

So, we got the gear down, power back and we are real low at that place we just flew all the way to with a plane load of people and we are going to approach with no intention of landing?

Why are you so insistent on the hard cold facts of the arithmetic of this and yet ignore the obvious? The obvious does not fit into your little package. Do you think (despite what you think of me), that the rest on this forum could accept a statement like that? And you have the nerve to dismiss any political notions? You have none, absolutely none and you just did this as a what high school geometry project?

Do you have any actual stick time? I know, I know that is another personal question that has no bearing on managing an aircraft and conclusions.

Evan? Aside from having (your), the best answer, why am I bothering with this? Damn man, you and I may not agree on many things but I'll give bonus points for that one.

[Northwester]

A:


B:


Even if we take B as granted (which I don't), how does B lead to A?

There are a LOT of accidents during approach where the pilots didn't intend to bust minimums, and yet they were a major cause in the accident sequence.

Take Turkish's 737 in Amsterdam, to name just one of the big pile.

My feeling (take it for what it's worth) is that pressure or not, busted approach or not, the pilots here were the main direct cause of the accident. (then we'll have to dig in the human factors field to find what caused that cause).

I still think that what happened after the 100m altitude could have been caused by different factors, pilots error included. But since I cannot exclude other factors at this point, and there are several potential scenarios, I am not going to blame the pilots yet, rather give them the benefit of the doubt because the CVR transcript does not indicate any intention to bust the minima or do something stupid.

[guamainiac]

How many CVR transcripts indicate that the crew intended to do something stupid?

Do you understand the concept of "behind the power curve" .. ?

[Northwester]

Gee and what do you think they would do if they found the runway all bright and shiny in front of them.

So, we got the gear down, power back and we are real low at that place we just flew all the way to with a plane load of people and we are going to approach with no intention of landing?

Why are you so insistent on the hard cold facts of the arithmetic of this and yet ignore the obvious? The obvious does not fit into your little package. Do you think (despite what you think of me), that the rest on this forum could accept a statement like that? And you have the nerve to dismiss any political notions? You have none, absolutely none and you just did this as a what high school geometry project?

Do you have any actual stick time? I know, I know that is another personal question that has no bearing on managing an aircraft and conclusions.

I don't have a nice little package. I am looking at everything that is available at this time. And I do not question your credibility. I respect your opinions.

Even if pilots error is very probable here, I see a rush to judgement to blame the pilots before we know all the facts.

[Gabriel]

Gee and what do you think they would do if they found the runway all bright and shiny in front of them.

Land, of course.

So, we got the gear down, power back and we are real low at that place we just flew all the way to with a plane load of people and we are going to approach with no intention of landing?

That's a perfectly reasonable scenario.

Every time you do an instrument approach it is with the intention to land IF, by the minimums, you "found the runway all bright and shiny in front of" you, and with the intention to go around if you don't.

That's almost the definition of an instrument approach.
Happens all the time every day around the world.

That by itself doesn't explain the accident, of course, since what happens all the time every day around the world is that the pilots either safely land or safely go-around.

[Geebee]

Land, of course.

That's a perfectly reasonable scenario.

Every time you do an instrument approach it is with the intention to land IF, by the minimums, you "found the runway all bright and shiny in front of" you, and with the intention to go around if you don't.

That's almost the definition of an instrument approach.
Happens all the time every day around the world.

That by itself doesn't explain the accident, of course, since what happens all the time every day around the world is that the pilots either safely land or safely go-around.

[guamainiac]

I hope his post was just dark humor?

Do you think they hit minimums on each approach? My comments were directed at Northwester. Sorry.

[Geebee]

Sincere apologies guamainiac.
I'll revoke my post and sincerely apologize.

[Evan]

From the accident point of view however, the facts are there and we should not ignore them. One of the facts not mentioned yet is that certain senior Polish military have been accused last week by Polish staff close to the investigation (Edmund Klich, head of the Polish investigation) of trying to place as much as possible the blame on the Russians. Indeed, not everyone in Poland is a conspiration theory advocate.

Has there been anything in the Polish press about how Kaczyński's hard-headed leadership history might have led to this crash, and how he may have cultivated a culture of recklessness through his insistence on courageous perseverance over sensible caution? Has there been anything suggesting that the landing itself was motivated by electoral politics and that it was entirely unnecessary, and yet politically essential to his reelection effort, that Kaczyński be in attendance. Has there been anything attributing the reckless insistence of this bull-headed politician for the tragic loss of his wife and senior staff, not to mention the crew and a few innocent trees?

Whatever happened here, whether it was a pilot error or violation (as all evidence seems to suggest) or a mechanical issue, the weather depiction before the approach even began was negative for landing, they should never had attempted the landing down to minimums in the first place, and probably wouldn't have if they had not felt some overwhelming pressure (either stated or ingrained) to do so.

Have the Polish press published anything of this nature?

Or is that not allowed?

[Northwester]

A good number of publications suggested that. The difference of opinions runs along the political division lines. One group maintains that all fault is on Kaczynski's side for even organizing such a flight, the other group maintains that as a head of state he had the right to do it and they blame Russians for everything that happened. I think there are very few people that stay outside this polarizing division.

But yes, a lot has been published on both sides of the spectrum.

[Evan]

A good number of publications suggested that. The difference of opinions runs along the political division lines. One group maintains that all fault is on Kaczynski's side for even organizing such a flight, the other group maintains that as a head of state he had the right to do it and they blame Russians for everything that happened. I think there are very few people that stay outside this polarizing division.

But yes, a lot has been published on both sides of the spectrum.

Interesting.

From an outsider's point of view, it's pretty easy to see which side of that argument is based on intelligence and which side is based on nationalistic dogma.

[Gabriel]

Do you think they hit minimums on each approach?

I do. On almost each instrument approach. Unless you go-around before the minimums, you are either going around at the minimums or continuing with the approach with the runway in sight as you fly through the minimums.

In this case, the plane descended to the MDA and remained there for a while.

Up to there, everything is perfectly normal.
They only had to go around or see the runway and land, and everything would have been perfectly normal and legal.
Instead, they started to descend below the MDA without the runway in sight.
That's the bad part. We "just" have to know why.

I don't see a clear case of the pilots busting intentionally busting minimums here. Not yet at least. I'm not discarding it either.

With the partial info we have, potential scenarios that I "feel" are likely are:

1- They intentionally busted minimums, under pressure from the politicians to land there.
2- They attempted the approach with the commitment not to bust minimums, but while flying the MDA the lost control of the plane because of:
a) Some technical failure.
b) Errors that led to loss of situational awareness, maybe airspeed awareness.

My "feeling" by now (with the partial information available, and hence it can change as we get new information) is that the most likely is 2b because:

Theory 1 is hard to understand. Ok, a pilot can bust a minimum and crash with an obstacle, an antenna, a hill or something like that. But how low would the pilot go without the runway in sight? They were BELOW THE RUNWAY by when they hit the first tree. It makes no sense, unless they were expecting (hoping) to touch down at the proper spot even without seeing the spot, which also makes no sense. In favor of this theory we have the precedents of what happened in previous flights and the discussion about the President not knowing what to do if they could not land there.

In theory 2a I'd expect some comment (like "what is it doing now", "I have no control", "I cant raise the nose") plus some aural warning (a chime, a horn...). There is no trace of those in what we have of the CVR.

PS: I respond to posts, directed at me or not, where I feel I can contribute with something.

[Northwester]

This is a response to Evan's post:

True. But the attitude towards Russia, whether be caution or strong dislike, does not come from a "dogma", but from millions of lives lost over the last few centuries, and families still mourning those lost to plain murder or deportations during the second world war.

This crash, as any other crash, deserves a thorough investigation, specially because of strong emotions connected to it. I am not a fan of Kaczynski (I think he was a poor politician and not a nice person), but it is too easy to say it's all Kaczynski's fault, the pilots were stupid, case closed.

[Northwester]

Gabriel, this is the most objective summary of what we know so far that has been posted here. Thank you.