Polish President and wife killed in Tu-154 crash

[Gabriel]

All very well to take the textbook approach Gabriel, but in the real world life does not work like that. People in power generally get there by steamrolling bulldozing or cajoaling out of the way all obstacles in their path. On that plane there were any number of people very used to getting their own way - it doesn't take much of a search to find many of societies 'high flyers' who seem to think the rules are just for the 'little people' and don't apply to them. Maybe the president was thinking about the media coverage and how well the event would play for his up coming elections? Maybe the head of the airforce sent a message to the cockpit stating that he, the president a poland would have looked very bad had the aircraft had to divert because they would then be late... Even if there was no direct order to the pilot to land the plane, there would perhaps have been more subtle inferences made about competence etc that may have ended a pilots career.

So yes, you are totally correct at the end of the day it is the Captain's decision, but to ignore or dismiss the other factors is wrong.

I stick 100% with what I've said, and I agree 100% with the above.
Where did I say anything contrary to all that? I didn't ignore or dismiss anything. In fact, in my post before that one I specifically mentioned "more pressure than he could handle" as tho only possible explanation for intentionally busting the minimums.

Pressure is always a factor in a decision. And I agree that pressure from the President and the Air Force Commander (your Big Boss if you are an Air Force pilot like in this case) would be a very strong factor.

Yet, the person who put the pressure vs the safety on the scale and the one who made the final call was the PIC. He could have said "No". He wasn't requied to surrender under any pressure or to follow any order from anybody in this World (or outside for the matter).

Under no way do I intend to imply that it would have been easy. Just that it was possible and within the control of the PIC. As the previous flight where the pilot disobeyed the President (and many other examples) have shown. (there are many counter-examples where pressure won too)

For some pilots "more pressure than he could handle" was "I want to go home early". For others it was "I want to be kind with my boss to improve chances of promotion". For others it was "I don't want to loose my job". For others it was a gun against his head.

Every pilot (or any person for the matter) has his limits. A good pilot tend to have stricter limits. And the pilot flying for the President (and the whole top of the government) should be the best one available... unless the top of the government wanted a "docile" one that they could handle at their wish.

Exactly the same principle of the culture of safety (or lack of) in airlines.

[Evan]

Yet, the person who put the pressure vs the safety on the scale and the one who made the final call was the PIC. He could have said "No". He wasn't requied to surrender under any pressure or to follow any order from anybody in this World (or outside for the matter).

I don't know Gabriel, define required. Legally or mentally?

You are absolutely correct that the decision was his alone to make, but did he have a choice? Everyone is ultimately responsible for their actions despite the illusions of authority, but these are very powerful illusions that come with very real ramifications. I don't want to politicize this thread, but take as an example a soldier on a patrol in Afghanistan under orders to fire against civilians if they fail to stop approaching a convoy. That soldier might see a car with a family coming at him and have to make a decision, and ultimately his experience, training and mental pressure from command might force him to open fire despite his perception telling him these are non-combatants. So he opens fire, the car turns out to contain an unarmed family whom he has just murdered, and he has to go through life thinking that he made that decision himself. But he didn't. That murder is the fault of everyone above him who placed him and that family in that situation. So yes, he decided to pull the trigger, but psychologically he never had a choice. Psychologically, that decision was made for him in advance, and for an instant he became their puppet.

Now, that's an extreme example, and in this case he would have had to overcome fear rather than play into it, but the subjugated mind is still under tremendous pressure to perform a task that might not be in synch with personal judgement. If you knew as much about the mind as you do about stall, you might agree (and maybe you do).

(now please don't flame me with political responses. I'm only talking about the human factor.)

[Gabriel]

Evan:

1) I'm not intending to assign blame.
2) Due obedience in combat and rules of engagement are different than those in peace time.
3) Yet, any soldier can (and must) reject an illegal order. Yes, the call of what's legal and what's illegal is based on knowledge, training and a whole bunch of judgement and common sense. For example say that a group of soldiers enter a civilian village and are ordered to viloate young girls under 15.
4) I understand that even if the soldier above has very clear that the order is illegal, the pressure can be to much for him and he might do as told.
5) But another solodier might not accept it and disobey the illegal order.
6) To the very paragraph you quoted, some pilots would have reacted like this pilot did and some would have just said "fuck you, I ain't doing it". History proves both. I know one pilot that, when he was very young and inexperienced FO, in times where CRM was yet to be invented and the authority gradint in the cockpit was huge, when the very experienced and captain wanted to "scud run" a ferry night flight he told the captain no to do so, and when the captain insisted he put his hands on the fuel shut-off valves and said "we are either climbing or gliding, your choice". They climbed. I know some people, maybe many or most people, have not the required personality to handle that kind of pressure. But some certaily do. Who would you put in charge of flying the whole head of a goverment? (again, unless you wanted someone docile and obedient to the point of doing stupid things if ordered)
7) We still don't know for sure if this pilot busted minimums, and if he did if it was intentionaly, and if it was if he was racting to orders from his superiors. Yes, it smells like that, but we still don't know.
8 ) How on Earth can anyone be "mentaly required" to anything??????

[brianw999]

Let's look at human factors. Let's also look at an actual incident.

The place .... Stockwell Underground railway station.
The date ..... July 2005.
Relevent previous history... This event took place just two weeks after the London bus and underground train bombings on 7th July 2005.

Jean Menezes, a Brazilian "student" (actually in the UK illegally but this was not known at the time), entered Stockwell Underground Station followed by armed officers of the metropolitan police anti-terrorist squad. He was being followed as it was suspected that he was involved in terrorist activity. He apparently realised that he was being followed and ran from the officers into a train. The officers suspected that he might be carrying an explosive device and were instructed by a higher commander to use suitable force to apprehend him or deal appropriately with the situation. On entering the train the officers, fearing that Menezes was carrying a suicide explosive device, pinned him to the floor by the arms to prevent a detonation and shot him dead with seven rounds of 9mm pistol fire to the head.

It was later realised that Menezes was not involved in terrorist activity.

The police officers were not prosecuted. Public uproar was enormous with howls from the softer, huggy huggy, politically correct brigade to hang, dry and quarter the officers and their commander who gave the shoot order.

Now...put yourself in the place of the police officers. (We will leave the commander out of it for the moment). They are told that their target is probably carrying an explosive device. The target ran from them so they now had reasonable cause to believe the information given.
Despite this knowledge they continued to the suspect, dragged him to the floor and used the only force possible in the circumstances i.e. shoot him dead and make damn sure that he IS dead (the reason for the 7 rounds to the head) to avoid another possible terrorist explosion tragedy on British public transport.

Should they have made the decision to continue or should they have held back ?

Personally, I believe they did nothing more than that expected of them and they showed great bravery in doing so. They went into a situation that had a high possibility of them losing their lives in an explosion given the information that they had. Instead of being vilified in the media they should have received a high level honour for their selfless actions.

The commander (Cressida Dick) was later severely criticised for failings in her investigations leading up to the incident and for failings in fully identifying the suspect (who looked like, but was not a known current actual terrorist supect).

So...what does this have to do with the air crash in question in this thread ?

It shows a role reversal here in a way. The police officers I describe and the pilots of the TU 154 were both under pressure from commanders.

However...

We had police officers who acted on what they believed to to be known facts and acted correctly.

The pilots of the TU 154 failed to act on known facts (the weather conditions) acted incorrectly and suffered the consequences.

Go back to what I said about Commander Cressida Dick. She was subjected to severe criticism of her handling of the Stockwell incident and only narrowly managed to retain her job and avoid a corporate manslaughter charge.

The Military commander in the TU 154 should be the one ultimately held to be responsible if indeed he was the one who put threatening pressure on the pilots. He lost his life but had he survived he should be the one facing court martial procedures and possible further "Soviet style" punishment.

Whatever the place to position blame is, it does not override the dreadful tragedy that has befallen the Polish nation. My heart goes out to you all.

[justLOT787]

Polish military official confirmed that the pilots were aware that they are crashing that was the last second. He stated that the last seconds are disturbing and sad. That is normal if you listen to any black box recorder from last seconds. People know they are about to die and they scream. But we need to know from the start till the end what happened not just couple of seconds.

[aardvark2zz]

Animation of Polish Government Tu154M crash. RIP.





Obviously, only proper official sources will have the true flight approach.

[Peter_K]

It seems Mr. Kaczynski was a bit of a diva with the pilots, and if he insisted on continuing with this approach, his stubbornness got them all killed.

(...)Mr. Kaczynski threatened that there would be consequences for the pilot, the Polish newspaper Dziennik reported. “If someone decides to become a pilot, he cannot be fearful,” Mr. Kaczynski said.

What an idiotic thing to say.

Minor point, but he actually used an "officer" not a "pilot". Seems like media alerted the translation to make it more dramatic.

Apparently so far no indication of outside pressure from the CVR, though they ordered a special analysis of the background noises.

Could have been an CRM issue too. In military terms the FO outranker the captain.

[EconomyClass]

Moral: Don't run from a British cop when the nation is under a terror alert. Not going to come out good for you.

[Gabriel]

Weren't those British cops wearing civilian clothes?

[EconomyClass]

There were undercover and attempting to locate and arrest four men believed to be involved in attempted subway bombings.

But if you read the Wiki acount, Menezes wasn't running. He was cornered by three undercover cops in a subway train.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Charles_de_Menezes

[brianw999]

Never believe all you read on Wikipedia. That website is created by its users, not a defined, verifiable source.
Menezes was challenged, vaulted a ticket barrier and ran for it. If he had stood still he would have been arrested and might even have got to stay in the UK. Either way, he would be alive now had he stopped when challenged.
The officers were in plain clothes but I believe (not verifiable) that they donned police issue and marked baseball caps when they shouted to Menezes to stop.
If someone wearing a police cap and pointing a 9mm Glock at me tells me to stop, believe me, I WILL stop !!

[EconomyClass]

OK, Brian, here's another source, one of your newspapers:

Did De Menezes jump over the tube station barrier or do anything to arouse suspicion?

He walked out of the flat and took a bus to an underground station, which he found was closed. He got back on the bus and went to Stockwell station. Some police took this detouring to be a counter-surveillance technique that might be used by a trained terrorist.

Their suspicions increased because they saw De Menezes texting and talking on his mobile phone. In fact, the 27-year-old electrician had overslept and was late for work on the other side of London.

Once he reached Stockwell station, he picked up a free newspaper, walked through the barrier and went calmly down the escalator. Initial reports to the contrary are now accepted as wrong.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2008/de...olice-shooting

Should I believe anything that casts a bad light on the cops in UK? I also read the court found for the family to the tune of 100,000 pounds. Would that have happened if a guy did what you think he did? By the way, wasn't Ian Blair forced out for this police dustup?

[SYDCBRWOD]

By the way, wasn't Ian Blair forced out for this police dustup?

Do you mean this IAN?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tony_Blair

EDIT: Bugger - own goal. Apologies EC

[brianw999]

^^^

No, he means this Ian Blair...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2008/oct/02/ian.blair.resigns

He resigned purportedly as a result of failing to get the support of London Mayor Boris Johnson. Johnson stated that there was no particular incident or sequence of occurrences that led to Blairs' resignation but it is widely thought that he resigned due to the pressure of the Menezes incident.

This is how it works in the UK. The heads start rolling from the top with a cock up of this magnitude.
You could liken the police officers I spoke of to the Tupolev pilots. Both carried out the action that led to tragedy. Here in the UK the top man goes but in Poland, Russia etc ? Had the persons who put pressure on the pilots been alive today and serving in a British force they would surely be the ones to go.

[MellonCollie]

Let's look at human factors. Let's also look at an actual incident.

The place .... Stockwell Underground railway station.
The date ..... July 2005.
Relevent previous history... This event took place just two weeks after the London bus and underground train bombings on 7th July 2005.

Jean Menezes, a Brazilian "student" (actually in the UK illegally but this was not known at the time), entered Stockwell Underground Station followed by armed officers of the metropolitan police anti-terrorist squad. He was being followed as it was suspected that he was involved in terrorist activity. He apparently realised that he was being followed and ran from the officers into a train. The officers suspected that he might be carrying an explosive device and were instructed by a higher commander to use suitable force to apprehend him or deal appropriately with the situation. On entering the train the officers, fearing that Menezes was carrying a suicide explosive device, pinned him to the floor by the arms to prevent a detonation and shot him dead with seven rounds of 9mm pistol fire to the head.

It was later realised that Menezes was not involved in terrorist activity.

Never believe all you read on Wikipedia. That website is created by its users, not a defined, verifiable source.
Menezes was challenged, vaulted a ticket barrier and ran for it. If he had stood still he would have been arrested and might even have got to stay in the UK. Either way, he would be alive now had he stopped when challenged.
The officers were in plain clothes but I believe (not verifiable) that they donned police issue and marked baseball caps when they shouted to Menezes to stop.
If someone wearing a police cap and pointing a 9mm Glock at me tells me to stop, believe me, I WILL stop !!

Rather than getting your "facts" from old copies of the Daily Mail, you should go read the actual report into the Stockwell incident. You can find it here. Allow me to quote from the report:

STOCKWELL Underground Station

8.16 The available CCTV evidence shows Jean Charles DE MENEZES
walking calmly into STOCKWELL Underground station just after
10:00hrs on Friday 22 July 2005. He was wearing a denim jacket, T-
shirt and denim jeans. He was not carrying anything.

8.17 Mr DE MENEZES is seen on the CCTV to select a copy of the Metro
newspaper. He then walked to the ticket barrier, used an Oyster card
and walked through the turnstile. He then turned left towards the
escalator to the Northern line and walked down on its left hand side.
There are no recordings, which cover the lower end of the escalator or
platform, the relevant tapes, when seized by the MPS, were found to be
blank.