Polish President and wife killed in Tu-154 crash

[Evan]

According to the recording (reel 9, track 4), col. Krasnokutski was present at the ATC, participated in the work of controllers, and influenced their decisions. After several suggestions from the controller to interrupt the approach and divert the plane, he said: "We are guiding to 100 meters, 100 meters, and end of discussion."

I'm under the impression that the Russian controllers cannot ordinarily interrupt the approach and divert the plane unless obstacles exist or separation minimums are violated:

According to the Russian AIP, the controller must prohibit landing of an aircraft and instruct the crew to go around if:

- There are any obstacles along the aircraft descent path or on the runway jeopardizing flight safety;

- there appeared a threat to flight safe aircraft separation on final.

and that otherwise the decision to land is left to the PIC:

According to item c) Para 1 Section AD 1.1-1 of Russian AIP: "pilots-in-command of foreign aircraft operating in Russia, shall make a decision on the possibility of taking-off from an aerodrome, and of landing at destination aerodrome on their own, assuming full responsibility for the decision taken".

[guamainiac]

Evan, this brings us back to a question that did not go answered a few "pages" back when the Chicago Convention came to light.

I asked or something to this effect:

The Chicago "rules" seemed to come into effect during the investigation and after the crash. This was regarding on the conduct and procedural protocols on the role of Poland and the role of Russia.

During this discussion of the the Chicago Rules it was stated that under the Chicago rules the decision to land would be on the PIC.

However if it were a military flight Russian ATC would have that unquestioned authority to wave the PIC off.

My point or question then (as now), is exactly when the Chicago Convention protocols were adopted for this particular flight and what were the precedents for not only flights from Poland but other countries.

Was there a meeting to establish a "chain of command" for this flight?

It sounded to me that the adoption of the Chicago Rules was post facto and that there was no (ad hoc), tete-a-tete for this flight alone.

It stretches the imagination that an aircraft of the Polish Air Force, being flown by a pure military crew into a military air strip be suddenly treated by some extra special and (is lax the proper word), set of regulations. Not to mention that Air Traffic Control would be hopefully more aware of trends both daily, seasonal and as well as the larger frontal phenomena and what to expect.

At what point was it established that ATC did not have the authority to command that aircraft to abandon it's attempts to land?

Perhaps we will find that this was not thought out and just a patchwork of band aids, bobby pins, duct tape and other Rube Goldberg searchlight devices. Who ever came up with that scheme or pure genius should be doing 20 years at hard labor. I am softening in my old age.

[Northwester]

I'm under the impression that the Russian controllers cannot ordinarily interrupt the approach and divert the plane unless obstacles exist or separation minimums are violated:

Right, 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.

[Evan]

Right, 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.

I see. I've argued the point before that ATC should have primacy over the PIC in these situations, but found it to be a fruitless effort. The overriding sentiment is that the PIC should always have the final call. I still believe ATC should have the ability (and responsibility) to veto PIC decisions when weather conditions present a danger to the flight, but unless the conditions are bad enough to force closure of a runway, this is apparently not the case.

[Northwester]

After 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.

[Northwester]

According to Polish investigators, the first attempt to force the "go around" mode happened right after the altitude warning. There is a record of force applied to the steering column. It was unsuccesful. Few seconds later the attempt was successful, but it was too late.

[Northwester]

Polish side sent 232 requests for information, participation in investigative events, and opinions. 170 requests were denied or left unanswered.

Few important ones: records from the ATC, participation in test flights, documentation from the crash site from the day of the crash (before and after the removal of bodies, photo, video and written reports), reports from autopsies, any documentation that would substantiate the statement about alcohol blood level of general Blasik.

[CockpitCat]

...anyone mention any conspiracy theory yet? I stumbled across this:

http://www.withmaliceandforethought.com/html/blog.html

Search for "TU-154"...

[Peter_K]

Evan, this brings us back to a question that did not go answered a few "pages" back when the Chicago Convention came to light.

I asked or something to this effect:

The Chicago "rules" seemed to come into effect during the investigation and after the crash. This was regarding on the conduct and procedural protocols on the role of Poland and the role of Russia.

During this discussion of the the Chicago Rules it was stated that under the Chicago rules the decision to land would be on the PIC.

However if it were a military flight Russian ATC would have that unquestioned authority to wave the PIC off.

My point or question then (as now), is exactly when the Chicago Convention protocols were adopted for this particular flight and what were the precedents for not only flights from Poland but other countries.

Was there a meeting to establish a "chain of command" for this flight?

It sounded to me that the adoption of the Chicago Rules was post facto and that there was no (ad hoc), tete-a-tete for this flight alone.

It stretches the imagination that an aircraft of the Polish Air Force, being flown by a pure military crew into a military air strip be suddenly treated by some extra special and (is lax the proper word), set of regulations. Not to mention that Air Traffic Control would be hopefully more aware of trends both daily, seasonal and as well as the larger frontal phenomena and what to expect.

At what point was it established that ATC did not have the authority to command that aircraft to abandon it's attempts to land?

Perhaps we will find that this was not thought out and just a patchwork of band aids, bobby pins, duct tape and other Rube Goldberg searchlight devices. Who ever came up with that scheme or pure genius should be doing 20 years at hard labor. I am softening in my old age.

The Chicago rules apply only to the investigation. In the flight plan the flight was marked as "M" which would suggest "military.

[Peter_K]

According to Polish side, the first medical rescue vehicle arrived at the crash site at 10:58 local time, that is 17 minutes after the crash. 7 more medical rescue vehicles arrived at 11:10 local time, that is 29 minutes after the crash.

This does not surprise me. In Poland if you call an ambulance and a TAXI at the same time, chances are the TAXI will arrive first.

[Evan]

According to Polish investigators, the first attempt to force the "go around" mode happened right after the altitude warning. There is a record of force applied to the steering column. It was unsuccesful. Few seconds later the attempt was successful, but it was too late.

The Russian report does make mention of this:

At 10:40:51, before passing the middle marker, simultaneously with the warning on reaching the target altitude set on the radio altimeter at a height of 60m, the co-pilot called out "Go-around". At that moment the aircraft altitude was of 10-15m with reference to the RWY 26 threshold. The analysis revealed that simultaneous with the co-pilot's phrase the FDR recorded the control column pull-up deflection which corresponds with the delta elevator deflection about 5° pitch up (Figure 49). The elevator deflection led to the increase of pitch and angle of attack and increase in vertical acceleration by 0.15g. However, this deflection was not enough to overpower the autopilot in the pitch channel (it requires a column deflection of 50mm from the trimmed position) which led to the AP moving the elevator pitch down to the previous position to maintain the target pitch angle.

Considering the coincidence of the "Go-around" callout and the control column pulling up, the investigation team believes that the co-pilot tried to initiate the go-around procedure but did not complete it:

The correct crew action during a go-around with flaps 36 include (Section 4.6.10 of the TU 154M FCOM):

• Increasing thrust to takeoff mode and calling out "Takeoff mode, going around";
  
• Switching from descent to climb with flaps retracting to 28°;
  
• Retracting landing gear after vertical speed becomes positive.

The Navigator continued calling out heights: 60, 50. At that time, having not obtained the crew report on going around, the landing zone controller instructed: "Level, 101". No crew actions followed to terminate descent; the aircraft continued descent and the navigator continued the height callouts: 40, 30, 20.

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.

[justLOT787]

So why did the Russians even bother too make the report? We knew that they will blame every thing on pilots, pressure, no flying skill no language skill ect. We knew they will do that. They didn’t let Polish investigators near the seen and if they did they wore observed very closely. This whole thing is just a show for them and again the Russians are innocent as always they did not do any thing wrong. Aft course they did! They knew what is going on and they knew that a foreign leader is coming over and they ignored it and caused the crash that killed so many innocent and smart people. My report goes as followed. Tower misinformed the crew with weather and altitude, position and that was the course of the crash. This whole MAK rapport is fake and made up it is a lie. If this was a different foreign leader of a more powerful country that was killed in a plane crash in Russia then thing would have been different! And now Premier TUSK got a smack in his face by the Russians. This is what I believe and always will. And history has a funny way of showing the truth later down the road! Don’t believe every thing you see and read because it’s just an illusion.

[Northwester]

This does not surprise me. In Poland if you call an ambulance and a TAXI at the same time, chances are the TAXI will arrive first.

Except this was an airdrome with its own rescue unit, and a plane just crashed 400m from the runway.

[Peter_K]

Except this was an airdrome with its own rescue unit, and a plane just crashed 400m from the runway.

I don't know. The airport was pretty much decommissioned.

In other news I heard something on the radio today that next week the Polish Ministry of Internal Affairs & Administration will publish the ATC tapes trancripts. This was the data which the Polish side requested but never received from its Russian counterpart. The Ministry is declining to speculate on how the tapes were obtained.

[Gabriel]

The Russians might have done a lot of things wrong.

- The Russians might have instructed the plane to descend to 100m. But the Polish crew went below that.
- The Russians might have given the pilot wrong weather information (and even could have made up the fog). But the Polish crew could not see the runway when they reached the minimums and still continued descending.
- The Russians might have taken one hour to respond with the rescue. But the people on the plane was all dead 0.1 seconds after the final impact.

Unless the CVR and FDR are fake, nothing that the Russians could have done wrong will change that the pilot busted minimums and that he did it in a horrible way. I mean, busting minimums is always very wrong, but one thing is leveling off at the minimum an then slowly get down a 10 or 20 meters more, and another thing is to ignore the minimum and continue with a descent at 2 / 3 times the vertical speed of a typical approach and 35km/h over the approach speed and keep doing that until 20m or lower.