Originally posted by Gabriel
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Polish President and wife killed in Tu-154 crash
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How could they give the pilots bad information on the fog and then say they couldn't see the runway? Clouds are "low fog" so??
It the base was decommissioned do you think a fire and rescue crew on a foggy day might have trouble locating a crash site especially if they were sent "TDY" and did not have sufficient local area familiarity? Heck they might not have even had the key to unlock the back gate once they found it.
Now, how could you not find a crash of that magnitude. Simple, a crash would just sound like a big bump and bang ... but wait, there was no fog.
But wait, wouldn't the pilots say something on the CVR like "fog, what fog, I can see my house from here" but wait, weren't all of the Polish journalists that were waiting for the plane and had their cameras confiscated seeing the fog that .... but wait there may have been fog machines.
Come to think of it and I have a bit of experience with this, you could mistake a searchlight for a fog or snow making machine. Really, you could that proves that a snow making machine could look like something that could make fog except that.Live, from a grassy knoll somewhere near you.
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Peter, on a serious note, there was some mention that under the military protocol that ATC did have the authority to deny the permission to land. This was at or about the same time that the "Chicago agreement" was first mentioned. That was when I first asked that question.Live, from a grassy knoll somewhere near you.
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Originally posted by Northwester View Post(if this is confirmed, of course - I will wait for the results of Polish investigation)
Originally posted by Northwester View PostThere was no intention to continue descending.
Originally posted by Northwester View PostThere was no intention to continue descending.
It's hard to say what the biggest mistake was, since there are so many. Here are a few:
- failure to properly plan the flight and coordinate with the field operations;
- decision to make a "trial approach" in conditions that were clearly below minima;
- failure to properly brief the approach with the crew and the controllers;
- failure to go-around early when the approach speed was too high and above glidepath;
- failure to disengage autopilot during the non-precision approach;
- failure to understand the limitations of the Tu 154M automation, notably the autothrottle limitations;
- failure to monitor both barometric and radar altimeters, and to call go-around at 100m QFE;
- failure to maintain proper altimeter calibration (it appears that the PIC's baro was reset during final, possibly to silence the TAWS warnings;
- failure to accept a Russian navigator familiar with the field when offered;
- failure to respect sterile cockpit rules;
- failure to apply sufficient breakout force at 60m;
- failure to apply pitch, TOGA thrust and retract gear/flaps at 100m;
- failure to apply TOGA thrust and retract gear/flaps at 60m;
- failure to respect TAWS warnings
- failure to respect ATC warnings
- failure to respect warnings from colleagues on the ground.
- and so forth...
Your only hope of spinning this one is to prove that the report is an outright, intentional fabrication. That would be a criminal act on the part of the Russians, and is a very serious accusation. The Polish investigation should either make that accusation, publicly, or concede to the reality of the facts as they are.
Short of that, you are just fighting a battle that is already lost. I'm sorry this one has thus far not turned out the way you wanted it. It is shocking and hard to accept, even without patriotic bias.
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Originally posted by Fear_of_FlyingWell, now, that's a good question. Maybe it was so the 98% of the world who aren't Polish or blinded by anti-Russian venom could actually learn how the plane crashed. For the rest of you, I can't think of a single reason.
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Originally posted by Evan View PostOk.
Whoa! I thought we were waiting. Northwester, I can understand how you want to refute the obvious conclusions of the Russian report. But, unless the CVR, DFR and quick access module transcriptions are fakes, there is no way around the fact that this is pure pilot error, albeit with exacerbating circumstances.
According to the DFR, they never stopped descending. The reason we hear multiple callouts for 100m is because they are reading radalt and the terrain is briefly descending as the plane is descending. There is no control input to level off at any time before 60m RA, which is 10-15m QFE.
It's hard to say what the biggest mistake was, since there are so many. Here are a few:
- failure to properly plan the flight and coordinate with the field operations;
- decision to make a "trial approach" in conditions that were clearly below minima;
- failure to properly brief the approach with the crew and the controllers;
- failure to go-around early when the approach speed was too high and above glidepath;
- failure to disengage autopilot during the non-precision approach;
- failure to understand the limitations of the Tu 154M automation, notably the autothrottle limitations;
- failure to monitor both barometric and radar altimeters, and to call go-around at 100m QFE;
- failure to maintain proper altimeter calibration (it appears that the PIC's baro was reset during final, possibly to silence the TAWS warnings;
- failure to accept a Russian navigator familiar with the field when offered;
- failure to respect sterile cockpit rules;
- failure to apply sufficient breakout force at 60m;
- failure to apply pitch, TOGA thrust and retract gear/flaps at 100m;
- failure to apply TOGA thrust and retract gear/flaps at 60m;
- failure to respect TAWS warnings
- failure to respect ATC warnings
- failure to respect warnings from colleagues on the ground.
- and so forth...
Your only hope of spinning this one is to prove that the report is an outright, intentional fabrication. That would be a criminal act on the part of the Russians, and is a very serious accusation. The Polish investigation should either make that accusation, publicly, or concede to the reality of the facts as they are.
Short of that, you are just fighting a battle that is already lost. I'm sorry this one has thus far not turned out the way you wanted it. It is shocking and hard to accept, even without patriotic bias.
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I still insist there was not intention to descend below 100m. When both PIC and co-pilot call for go around and there is a record of attempts to overpower AP, there can be no other conclusion. I don't know why they did not succeed - this is still a mystery.
You cannot condemn anyone without listening to both sides, the prosecutor and the defendant. The Russians attached Polish comments to their report, but conveniently forgot to translate it to English, as they did with their report. We need to wait for the Polish report before judging any actions. Some of the accusations provided by the Russians and used on this forum will be proven outright false.
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Originally posted by Northwester View PostCould you make a list of improper actions on the Russian side?
Originally posted by NorthwesterI still insist there was not intention to descend below 100m. When both PIC and co-pilot call for go around and there is a record of attempts to overpower AP, there can be no other conclusion. I don't know why they did not succeed - this is still a mystery.
-There is an attempt to apply pitch to 5° ANU but there is no other action such as adding TOGA thrust or cleaning configuration (pilot error).
- It occurs at 10-15m QFE (failure to monitor) and 60m RA (failure to respect the MDA)
- The autopilot is still engaged in the pitch channel without guidance (failure to adhere to FCOM procedure, or basic airmanship).
- The attempt to raise pitch fails because the column is not pulled back enough to override the autopilot. and the autopilot simply trims the elevators back to their previous position (failure to understand the aircraft automation)
Whatever their intentions. it's pilot error. And those errors are due to bad piloting, including a failure to monitor. And all of this is likely due to improper pressures from VIP officials and the resulting stress this creates.
Final analysis: flawed safety culture leading to pilot error.
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All the data is fabricated, in which case the Polish government needs to make an outright accusation against the Russians that the data is fabricated, not misinterpreted. This constitutes an enormous international crime and therefore before they make such an accusation they must be able to back it up with hard evidence, and, of course, motive.
Is there a comment on the Polish version stating that the DFDR (from the quick access module) plots are inaccurate? If not, game over.
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Originally posted by Evan View PostWhat would that change? It was a non-precision approach. It required visual flight below 100m QFE.
If you see the ground due to downwards visibility and some forward visibility but not enough to have the runway in sight, you canot descend below 100m.
I want to add that, unlike the precision approach that have a DECSION altitude (DA), in a non precision approach you are not supposed do keep descending thrugh the MINIMUM DESCENT altitude (MDA) and at that point start the go-around. You are supposed to start the level off a bit earlier as to have the airplane fully leveled off not below the MDA.
--- Judge what is said by the merits of what is said, not by the credentials of who said it. ---
--- Defend what you say with arguments, not by imposing your credentials ---
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Originally posted by Northwester View PostRight, except when the horizontal visibility is 200 - 400m, the controller cannot be sure that there are no obstacles on the RWY and has to interrupt the approach.
Originally posted by Northwester View PostAfter examining the CVR recording, Polish side determined that PIC first issued "go around" command, then co-pilot repeated it. That part was not included in the Russian version.
Originally posted by Northwester View PostThe biggest mistake of the crew was (if this is confirmed, of course - I will wait for the results of Polish investigation) for the navigator to start using radalt from the 300m alt on.
Another was not using the pressure altimeter. Or perhaps the PIC was using it after someone (NAV?) reset it to standard pressure?
BTW I believe the Polish team has the original QAR data, confirming the FDR plots. Do you think Russians fabricated this as well?
Originally posted by guamainiac View PostHowever if it were a military flight Russian ATC would have that unquestioned authority to wave the PIC off.
Was there a meeting to establish a "chain of command" for this flight?
Originally posted by Evan View Post- The attempt to raise pitch fails because the column is not pulled back enough to override the autopilot. and the autopilot simply trims the elevators back to their previous position (failure to understand the aircraft automation)
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Originally posted by Evan View PostThe Russian report does make mention of this:
The FDR plots confirm this. There is a moment of abrupt column back-pressure to 5° ANU at 60m RA. It is held there until the second attempt. There is no thrust lever movement. It does seem to suggest that an attempt to arrest sink-rate was initiated at least by the co-pilot. The AP should never have been engaged at this point, and the PF should have known the aircraft well enough to apply proper breakout force.
And this was done at 60m RA / 10-15m QFE. So I don't see how this information could begin to exonerate the pilots.
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Originally posted by Fear_of_FlyingWell, now, that's a good question. Maybe it was so the 98% of the world who aren't Polish or blinded by anti-Russian venom could actually learn how the plane crashed. For the rest of you, I can't think of a single reason.
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Originally posted by guamainiac View PostPeter, on a serious note, there was some mention that under the military protocol that ATC did have the authority to deny the permission to land. This was at or about the same time that the "Chicago agreement" was first mentioned. That was when I first asked that question.
According to some unofficial sources the controller very firmly instructed Yak to go around only to see him few seconds later pop out from the low overcast with the reveres already deployed and bring the aircraft to a greased touchdown. The controller apparently exclaimed "мoлoдец!", which in a rough translation means something like "what a guy!"
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Originally posted by Gabriel View PostWrong. Runway in sight is required to descend below 100m. If you see the ground due to downwards visibility and some forward visibility but not enough to have the runway in sight, you canot descend below 100m.
Originally posted by KrisActually, the "attempt" failed because they didn't disconnect the AP manually. Did they forget they were using it?
Originally posted by Peter_KI don't remember if it was mentioned here before but the auto-thrust in AP mode did not work without the ILS signal. I did not read the report but would imagine that the power was eventually applied. The aircraft was climbing. They hit the the first bushes in the raven about 2 meters AGL. The tree that clipped the wing was struck at much higher elevation. In fact if it wasn't for it, they would have likely made it.
AT 10:32:56, while approaching the base turn the PIC took the following decision: "We'll make an approach. In case of failure, we'll go around in autoflight mode". In compliance with that decision at 10:34:20, after establishing on the circle altitude of 500m, the crew engaged the autothrottle. By taking this decision the crew demonstrated low knowledge of the aircraft equipment. In fact, the Tu-154M does not allow going around in autoflight mode. The appropriate procedures are written in Section 8.8.2 (4) of the FCOM.
The PIC must make sure that:The mentioned procedure assumes that a mandatory condition for arming the autoflight go-around is active glideslope mode used for autoflight or flight director approach in combination with Approach mode. It was not possible to use this mode when landing at Smolensk Airdrome due to the absence of appropriate ground-based navaids (ILS).
- the ROLL and PITCH switches are on;
- the GLIDE SLOPE light on autopilot control panel is on,
and then press the GO AROUND button,
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Originally posted by kris View PostPlanes land (legally) in worse conditions. ATC can never be 100% sure there is nothing on the runway.
Sure planes land in worse conditions, but on different airdromes with different landing systems.
Source please?
I believe their biggest "mistake" was going below 100m, radalt or otherwise.
Another was not using the pressure altimeter. Or perhaps the PIC was using it after someone (NAV?) reset it to standard pressure?
BTW I believe the Polish team has the original QAR data, confirming the FDR plots. Do you think Russians fabricated this as well?
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