Polish President and wife killed in Tu-154 crash

[MCM]

- at 100m both PIC and F/O call for GA, the Nav says "all within normal range" (that means altitude, distance, course, etc.) which also means reaching the MM. But they are over 2k from the RWY

And at what distance do you suggest they were?

I assume that you know that at 100m they should be 2km from the runway if performing a CDA.

You would also then know that the approach allows descent to 100m prior to the missed approach point. The two do not have to coincide.

- during the approach there were problems with navigation, the info from ATC was off, middle marker signal was off, I suspect there was also a problem with the GPS signal - as a result they had a reason to believe they were 1k closer to the RWY than they really were.

If the navigation equipment was off, they did a bloody good job of crashing within normal allowable tolerances of the equipment involved

now something strange is happening, despite the GA call the plane continues to descend rapidly. Normally you would say that there was no intention to land - they would have turned off the AP. But the plane is not following the straight line. Despite the AP engaged and no one touching the control column the trajectory is gradually changing. There is still the open question about the automatic GA, if it was supposed to work or not. But the behaviour of the crew is strange - the Nav is counting down to virtually 0, no one says anything, the plane gets below RWY elevation. I can only assume some temporary malfunction that makes the plane impossible to control.

THAT is the assumption you come to? You're more off the planet than I thought.

How about loss of situational awareness?

Your first "scenario" is entirely possible. It does NOT, however, require any "altered flight data".

The first part of your second scenario is also entirely possible. Again, it does NOT require altered flight data!

At the minima, it is a requirement to see THE RUNWAY on the type of approach being conducted. Searchlights are not a runway, and look nothing like a runway. It is entirely possible they got confused by them, and indeed they may have contributed to the crash. But they are not deliberately or maliciously placed.

Its time you stopped looking through your conspiracy glasses and realised that while you're getting very close to the method of accident itself, you're obsession with blaming somebody is preventing you from seeing it.

[Peter Kesternich]

What I still don't get is how the Russians - after all those technical preparations to kill the Polish president - managed to get the weather to cooperate

[Northwester]

What I still don't get is how the Russians - after all those technical preparations to kill the Polish president - managed to get the weather to cooperate

Who knows? Maybe fog was not necessary, they might have had different plans. Or maybe mother nature got some help. Even ATC personell was surprised by it. Comments like "it was not in the forecast, everything got covered in 20 minutes", or "where did it come from at 9:00 AM?" are not typical ATC comments, are they? But I don't want to get too much into it, the flight itself has plenty of things to deal with.

In any case, Gene Poteat was wrong on one count. He said "everyone with room temperature IQ knows what happened".

[Northwester]

And at what distance do you suggest they were?

I assume that you know that at 100m they should be 2km from the runway if performing a CDA.

You would also then know that the approach allows descent to 100m prior to the missed approach point. The two do not have to coincide.



If the navigation equipment was off, they did a bloody good job of crashing within normal allowable tolerances of the equipment involved


THAT is the assumption you come to? You're more off the planet than I thought.

How about loss of situational awareness?

Your first "scenario" is entirely possible. It does NOT, however, require any "altered flight data".

The first part of your second scenario is also entirely possible. Again, it does NOT require altered flight data!

At the minima, it is a requirement to see THE RUNWAY on the type of approach being conducted. Searchlights are not a runway, and look nothing like a runway. It is entirely possible they got confused by them, and indeed they may have contributed to the crash. But they are not deliberately or maliciously placed.

Its time you stopped looking through your conspiracy glasses and realised that while you're getting very close to the method of accident itself, you're obsession with blaming somebody is preventing you from seeing it.

As I said the two scenarios are highly theoretical and, the more I think about it, not very probable. For them to have tried landing, several conditions would have to be met: a permission from the ATC (and ATC can issue such a permission only if they can see the plane from the tower, otherwise they order GA), ground/RWY visiblity at decision height, and the A/P would have to be turned off. None of that happened. And both PIC and F/O called for GA. So the searchlight theory (or any landing attempt theory) is practically dead.

The botched GA procedure theory also seems very improbable. I believe that the plane trajectory was not exactly the way it is shown in the report. Just taking the Nav calls as approximately correct, you would come up with a trajectory that is shown as light blue dashed line. It seems to make sense. The plane intercepts the correct path and follows it (at the right pitch) till it reaches 100m alt. There is nothing, in the normal operational range, that would explain what happened after the second 100m call. Even if they pressed GA button and nothing happened, the plane could not fall from the sky the way it did. The second 100m call is at 10:40:45. The 20m call is at 10:40:51. That's 80 meters in 6 seconds, or over 13m/s. Unthinkable in any normal conditions. And someone said (I was not able to confirm the source) that if you set the AP in the logitudinal channel, the AP will not take the plane below the minimum altitude (100m). If you want to descend below it, you have to turn the AP off. So what really happend there?

[Northwester]

By any chances, do you keep the temperature in your house set very low?

Normally about 140, what about you?

[guamainiac]

Hold on. I thought ATC could order a GA or permission if they were operating under military rules as a military flight but that they decided they were not.

At least when I asked this way back when it was never clear if they were or were not a military flight.

They should have been but ATC never took control of the flight.

Did that have something to do with the back and forth last minute deals where the observer/nav was declined?

[Gabriel]

Hold on. I thought ATC could order a GA or permission if they were operating under military rules as a military flight but that they decided they were not.

At least when I asked this way back when it was never clear if they were or were not a military flight.

They should have been but ATC never took control of the flight.

Did that have something to do with the back and forth last minute deals where the observer/nav was declined?

ATC can order a go-around even in civilian flights.

What ATC can't do is order the pilot to land. Military or civilian. (heck, even the president who is the highest military rank could not do it in the previous incident).

[guamainiac]

No, this was all set forth. ATC has the authority to direct and order if the flight is designated military.

As a civilian flight, though it should have been not, the ATC can advise but the PIC is the authority on attempting a landing.

Polish AF plane with an all military crew ... not to mention AF 1 of the US flies military, if should have been but wasn't.

A major sticking point that has not yet been explained has it?

[guamainiac]

I watched a fog roll in today. It came from some low areas in an area that oddly was supposed to be home to one of the Easts largest jet relievers in the mid-Atlantic states. Fog came out of that slightly low area and within a half hour I was in a shroud. Look at the damned temp and dew point instead of IQ. ... 146

[Gabriel]

No, this was all set forth. ATC has the authority to direct and order if the flight is designated military.

As a civilian flight, though it should have been not, the ATC can advise but the PIC is the authority on attempting a landing.

Polish AF plane with an all military crew ... not to mention AF 1 of the US flies military, if should have been but wasn't.

A major sticking point that has not yet been explained has it?

Civilian planes MUST comply with any ATC clearance unless they are unable or have an emergency. "Delta 123 go around" means that Delta 123 MUST go around.

On the other hand "Tower, AF1 going around" is not asking permission to go around, it's informing the ATC that they ARE going around. And the only acceptable reply to an eventual "No, AF1 continue the landing, you are a military flight and I give the orders here" would be a "Fuck you" (ok, "Unable" might be more appropriate).

[Northwester]

I watched a fog roll in today. It came from some low areas in an area that oddly was supposed to be home to one of the Easts largest jet relievers in the mid-Atlantic states. Fog came out of that slightly low area and within a half hour I was in a shroud. Look at the damned temp and dew point instead of IQ. ... 146

A fog can roll in very quickly, but the humidity in Smolensk was 80%.

[Northwester]

Hold on. I thought ATC could order a GA or permission if they were operating under military rules as a military flight but that they decided they were not.

At least when I asked this way back when it was never clear if they were or were not a military flight.

They should have been but ATC never took control of the flight.

Did that have something to do with the back and forth last minute deals where the observer/nav was declined?

This was a military flight with military and non-military passengers. The plane was military, the crew was military, the ATC was military, and the airdrome was military. Whether the so called "leader" (Russian speaking crew member) was present or not had no impact on the classification of the flight.

[guamainiac]

Fully aware of the "who is who" but if you wade back through the posts this was never answered.

I remember asking because IF it was military the ATC would have had clear authority to divert.

Go back and take a look.

[guamainiac]

Ah! There was an implication by someone that the ATC was operating by Chicago Rules .. but, they only apply to the investigation.

The ATC handling and agreement (by whom), was never answered.

[Northwester]

Ah! There was an implication by someone that the ATC was operating by Chicago Rules .. but, they only apply to the investigation.

The ATC handling and agreement (by whom), was never answered.

The Plane: The TU-154M, 101, was the Polish Government's military Air vessel in service with the Polish Air Force’s 36th Special Aviation Regiment, operated by, and under jurisdiction of the Polish Ministry of National Defense. On April 10, 2010, the Tupolev TU-154M, 101, was conducting a flight designated as "HEAD" ("Important") with the President of the Republic of Poland, Lech Kaczynski, and 95 other individuals onboard. This flight was communicated to the Russian Federation as a military flight. Flights of governmental Air vessels traveling in Russian Federation airspace, are regulated by Russian Federal Aviation Laws. According with the Russian Ministry of Defense regulatory laws, and specifically, the Clause (No. 275 / FAPPPGosA) from September 24, 2004, regulating the military flights, flight supervisors (ground controllers) are obligated, at their discretion, to approve, or to forbid, landing of military Air vessels.

The Chicago Convention on International Civil Aviation and the Investigative Jurisdiction:
"Article 3 : Civil and state aircraft
(a) This Convention shall be applicable only to civil
aircraft, and shall not be applicable to state aircraft.
(b) Aircraft used in military, customs and police services
shall be deemed to be state aircraft [...]

Denis Chagnon ("ICAO"), the International Civil Aviation Organization's spokesman: "ICAO is the International Civil Aviation Organization. The crash in April [2010] was [a crash of the] state aircraft. It was not a civilian aircraft"

Flight Plan: PLF 101-I-M (“M” – military), Instrument Flight, via restricted HEAD air corridor. Departure EPW A050, Air Speed N0400 (400 knots/700 km/h), Altitude F270 (27,000 feet). Departure from Okecie, Warsaw, towards the coordinate BAMSO Z182, into the air corridor ASKIL B102; Flight Destination ZZZZ015, Secondary Airports: (1) UMII (Vitebsk - (Витебск), (2) Minsk (Минск) (UMSS); Flight Operator: OPR/Polish Air Force; Flight Status: STS/HEAD (President, Prime-Minister, or Marshal of the Sejm onboard); Flight Date: DOF/100410.