Polish President Killed In Tu-154 Crash Options

[L-1011]

Here is the link: Flight Global

Polish president Lech Kaczynski is among some 90 people killed after a governmental Tupolev Tu-154 crashed near the Russian city of Smolensk.

The Polish presidential office confirms that Kaczynski, his wife Maria, and dozens of senior Polish representatives were on board the aircraft.

It states that preliminary information suggests the aircraft struck trees at the end of the runway while attempting a go-around. Weather conditions were reportedly poor, including fog, but meteorological information from the airport has yet to be confirmed, as is a report that the Tu-154's crew was offered a diversion.

The presidential office says it is still awaiting official information regarding the number of occupants, and the total number of casualties.

It has published a list of around 90 people - headed by Kaczynski - who checked at Warsaw for the flight to Smolensk, including many senior representatives of the Government and military - among them notable politicians, and army and air force commanders.

The country's presidential air wing has two Tu-154Ms, numbered 101 and 102. While the airframe involved has yet to be positively identified, the presidential office manifest indicates the number '101' next to the aircraft type.

Russia's emergency situations ministry states that there is no evidence of survivors from the accident, which occurred at 10:50 Moscow time. Smolensk's military airport, Severni, is located to the north of the city and has 2,500m east-west runway. The ministry says the aircraft came down 300m from the runway.

Ninety-six people, it adds, were on board of which 88 were members of the official Polish delegation. Around 100 rescue personnel and 18 vehicles have attended the crash scene.

Kaczynski, elected president in 2005, was due to attend a memorial service to mark the 70th anniversary of the 1940 massacre of Polish prisoners at Katyn

it is a national tragedy

[ChillSpiller]

Darn, I just heard about it in the radio. It sure is a nations tragedy to loose its president and along some more leading politicians. My condolences go out to the families and relatives of the victims.

[galaxy]

"As the presidential plane, a 26-year-old Tupolev, winged toward the western Russian city of Smolensk on Saturday morning, thick cords of fog wrapped the city. On the ground, air traffic controllers urged the crew to land either in Minsk, the capital of Belarus, or in Moscow rather than risk navigating the fog, Russian officials said.

But time was pressing. The crew decided to risk the landing, and ignored instructions from the air traffic controllers, the Russian air force said."

Was it a "press-on-itis" or "get-home-itis" phenomenon ?

A psychological phenomenon called press-on-itis is related to incidents and accidents. Press-on-itis is simply the decision to continue to the planned destination or toward the planned goal even when significantly less risky alternatives exist. Press-on-itis is also known as “get-home-itis,” “hurry syndrome,” “plan continuation” and “goal fixation.” No matter what it is called, press-on-itis can present a serious problem to flight safety. It is important for a pilot to understand the causes of press-on-itis and to recognize when he or she is suffering from the condition. Knowing the causes and recognizing the symptoms will allow a pilot to recover before anything goes terribly wrong.


Press-on-itis is really the result of a decision-making error that involves continuing toward the destination (objective) despite a lack of readiness of the airplane or crew and the availability of reasonable lower-risk alternatives. Press-on-itis often occurs when there is an unsuitable environment such as bad weather at the destination. The pilot may continue on despite warnings from ATC or other crew members.

The Flight Safety Foundation’s (FSF) Approach-and-landing Accident Reduction (ALAR) Tool Kit study examined 76 approach and landing accidents and serious incidents and showed the most-frequent causal factor (74 percent) was “poor professional judgment/airmanship” (e.g., poor decision making). Press-on-itis accounted for 42 percent of all occurrences in which the crew continued an approach and landing when conditions warranted other action.

http://www.skybrary.aero/index.php/Press-on-itis_(OGHFA_BN)

[galaxy]

Back in 2008, when Georgia and Russia fought their brief war, Polish president Kaczynski was on his way to Tbilisi .
Air traffic control told the pilot of Kaczynski's plane to turn back because it was too dangerous to land in Tbilisi, but the president -- who also is commander in chief under Poland's law -- ordered the pilot to land anyway.......

http://alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/LDE6390GD.htm

[LearCapt]

Wow very sad news. Hope to hear what the actual weather was soon.

[bluebird121]

This is a link to more information:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8615872.stm

Poland to review travel rules after deadly air crash

People wait in line to sign a condolence book next to a sea of candles left by mourners outside Warsaw's presidential palace


Poland's acting president is to review travel rules for military officials after the president and other top officials were killed in a plane crash.

Bronislaw Komorowski announced the move as mourning continued for the 96 people killed when the jet crashed in fog while trying to land in western Russia.

President Lech Kaczynski's body is to lie in state in a closed coffin.

Questions are being asked about why the jet's pilots ignored advice to divert to another airport because of the fog.


The Russian side is behaving with extraordinary openness and, even more, with a Slavic openness and kindness

Radoslaw Sikorski
Polish foreign minister
Russia flew the bodies of victims, many of them believed to be disfigured beyond recognition, to morgues in Moscow where only about a quarter of them have been identified.

The body of the president's wife, Maria Kaczynska, has been identified and is to due to be returned to Poland on Tuesday.

There is no precedent for a dual funeral involving a head of state and his first lady, but a spokesman for the president's office said a joint funeral would be held once the bodies of all those killed had been repatriated.

Those killed had been due to attend a memorial for the Polish victims of the World War II massacre by Soviet secret police at Katyn in the Smolensk region.

Commentators in Poland have stressed the irony that so many senior figures were killed making a visit to commemorate victims of a massacre which targeted the elite of Poland's officer corps.

'Advised against landing'

The Soviet-built Tu-154 airliner clipped tree-tops as it tried to land at a former air base north of the city of Smolensk on Saturday morning.


SENIOR FIGURES KILLED
National leaders:
President Lech Kaczynski and wife Maria
Former President-in-exile Ryszard Kaczorowski
Top civil servant:
Slawomir Skrzypek National Bank of Poland chairman
Other politicians:
Wladyslaw Stasiak chief of the president's chancellery Aleksander Szczyglo chief of the National Security Office
Jerzy Szmajdzinski deputy speaker of the lower house Andrzej Kremer Foreign Ministry's undersecretary of state Stanislaw Komorowski deputy minister of national defence Przemyslaw Gosiewski Law and Justice party deputy chair
Military figures:
Franciszek Gagor chief of the general staff
Andrzej Blasik head of the air force
Andrzej Karweta head of the navy
Tadeusz Buk land forces commander
Aleksander Szczyglo head of the National Security Office
Cultural figures:
Andrzej Przewoznik head of Poland's Council for the Protection of Struggle and Martyrdom Sites
Tomasz Merta chief historical conservator


Pilot error in Polish air crash?
In pictures: Nations mourn
Russia-Poland thaw from tragedy
Polish Prosecutor General Andrzej Seremet said that Polish investigators had talked to the flight controller and flight supervisor and concluded that there had been "no conditions for landing".

"The tower was advising against the landing," he said.

Polish investigators, he said, had not yet listened to the cockpit conversations recorded on the plane's recovered black boxes but would do so to see if there had been "any suggestions made to the pilots" from other people aboard the plane.

There has been speculation the pilot and co-pilot, who were both aged 36, were under pressure not to delay the landing.

Sergei Ivanov, Russia's first deputy prime minister, said the black boxes were "absolutely functional and recorded absolutely all the information, sound as well as parametric [information], till the moment of crash".

"It is reliably confirmed that warning of the unfavourable weather conditions at the North airport and recommendations to go to a reserve airport were not only transmitted but received by the crew of the plane," he added.

Mr Seremet said the remains of 87 people had been found so far and he hoped the rest would be retrieved when the crash debris was lifted with heavy machinery.

Special session

A special joint session of the Polish parliament has been called for Tuesday to debate the disaster whose victims included MPs.



Thousands of students filed slowly through Warsaw

It is believed the funerals could be held this weekend.

The crash shocked many Russians as well, the BBC's Duncan Kennedy reports from Warsaw.

President Dmitry Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin have devoted much time and effort to dealing with the aftermath of the crash, he adds, and Monday was a day of mourning in Russia.

The country was "suffering and grieving together with the Poles", Mr Putin told a cabinet meeting.

Russia's handling of the tragedy has been widely appreciated by many in Poland, though others suggest the thaw in relations may not last, our correspondent says.

"I don't know whether there will be a political breakthrough, because we have many opposing interests with Russia," Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski said on a Polish radio station.

"But we already have an emotional breakthrough and that is already a great deal."

"I must emphasise that the Russian side is behaving with extraordinary openness and, even more, with a Slavic openness and kindness," he added.

At least 130 relatives have been flown to the Russian capital in the hope of helping forensic scientists to identify their loved ones' remains. They are being aided by Polish and Russian psychologists.

"We all had to fulfil this difficult duty," said Rafal Dobrzeniecki, whose fiancee's father died in the crash. "I never had the chance to call him my dear father-in-law, he will always stay in my memory."

A terrible tragedy. The questions are now being asked. Who (if anyone ) was at fault.? There have been a lot of allegations but the truth will be revealed. My sincere condolences to all their friends and family.

[Fast Jet]

Wow very sad news. Hope to hear what the actual weather was soon.

Yes, truly bad. The weather was thick fog. The pilot made one or two approaches, prior to the crash (I do so hate that word) according to the news on the telly. (No, SRA, LOC, VOR, NDB, PAR or ILS, RNav, GPS or anything then. . . ?)

A terrible loss to the families and to the country.

One hopes that future VVIPs and Heads of State will, during an approach into an airport, remain in their seats, calm, quiet and patient and stay away from the flightdeck, as approaches are critically busy times compared to the rest of the flight and it is a legal requirement that no personnel, other than the flight crew, be on the flightdeck during the approach however wonderful and interesting it might seem and however much one thinks they can influence "anybody" - if you go to the flightdeck - to "move things along a bit" - then the pilot, whilst dealing with ATC, the approach, any probs, flying the aircraft, as part of a loop of two or more flight-crew, during a trained and rehersed procedure - which has not woprked and is going around again, with the inherent fuel and time considerations, has to turn round and deal with you - your question and your unlearned advice, such as tell them I am . . . . that`ll get them moving. . . it won`t work.

During an approach and indeed a bad weather one, with problems (or they would have landed) - even God is the co-pilot - and the Pilot P1. is the boss of everything - including your good selves.

[Fast Jet]

May the Lord Jesus be with them in heaven.

[bluebird121]

This is a link to the latest news:

http://news.ninemsn.com.au/world/1054523/n...-kaczynski-died

Non-crew members were in the cockpit of the plane of Polish president Lech Kaczynski before its fatal crash in Russia in April, a top aviation official said.

"It has been established that in the cockpit there were individuals who were not members of the crew," said Tatyana Anodina, head of the inter-state air committee for the ex-Soviet Union which is investigating the crash.

"The voice of one of them has been identified exactly, the voice of the other, or the others, will require additional information from the Polish side," she added.

Ninety-six people, including Kaczynski, his wife and scores of senior Polish officials were killed in the crash on April 10 outside the western Russian city of Smolensk.

Also reported on the news this morning .(yet to be verified) there was a suggestion that mobile phones may have been used in the cockpit. If so this may have some bearing on the outcome(as well as the weather) of the investigation.