Plane Crash Kills Polish President

What a sad day!

What ever your political affiliation may be or your feelings toward Poland or the Polish people, this is truly a devastating blow to that country. I could not imagine the devastation, turmoil, sadness and despair that Americans would feel if this had been AF1. It's a great loss and a real shame!

God Bless them all and the people of Poland.
 
Why on earth there were so many VIPs allowed on the same aircraft I don't know.

Truley a sad day. I couldnt believe it when I switched on the news. One week of mourning has been declared by the sworn in president Bronisław Komorowski. The body of the president has been reportedly recovered.

It was a 28 year old Tu-154M, went through a complete over haul last December, upgraded to state of the art navigation and avionics. CVR and FDR have been recovered.

:(
 
granlistillo said:
. FWIW my dad flew dr killers for 30 yrs, but nothing bigger, said he has never been on a more dubious aircraft, nothing but rattling and ringing. No doubt this is was a wx related CFIT, but I am sure the Poles will get a Boeing or Airbus to replace.:(
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I've flown on many Russian built and operated aircraft, I would use a stronger word than "dubious." I prefer to take trains there for obvious reasons. It says something that most Russians I know will only fly on BA, Finnair or Delta. And they are scared to death of Russian pilots.

Tragic news though.
 
I have no idea what his alternates were. Is it possible that after four approaches fuel had become such an issue and he had to land? In the US I hear air carrier pilots say they have enough fuel for one or two turns in holding before they have to divert. Three missed approaches must had burned a lot of fuel.
 
Good info here.

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fholbert said:
I have no idea what his alternates were. Is it possible that after four approaches fuel had become such an issue and he had to land? In the US I hear air carrier pilots say they have enough fuel for one or two turns in holding before they have to divert. Three missed approaches must had burned a lot of fuel.
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Good point.
 
fholbert said:
Everyone was on the same plane? I've worked for companies who wouldn't let two IT people ride on the same plane.
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I think that was because of Delta 191 (the L-1011 that crashed at DFW due to a microburst back in 85) they lost quite a bit of their guys on that flight.
 
wzgrza said:
It was a 28 year old Tu-154M, went through a complete over haul last December, upgraded to state of the art navigation and avionics. CVR and FDR have been recovered.
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This Tu-154 was delivered in 1990, 20 years ago. The same year as the VC-25A. The first Tu-154 was delivered in 1972, the first 747 in 1970. The Tu-154M first flew in 1982, the first B747-200B was delivered in 1971. I'm not comparing the two aircraft, just saying I find it a bit hard to blame this on an aging aircraft.

Then there was a case in 2008 when a Tu-154 crew was allmost fired by their president for refusing to fly into Tbilisi when the Georgia conflict was going on and they diverted to Baku...I'm sure that was on their mind as well...
 
fholbert said:
Good info here.

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Starting at 1min02sec:
On another occasion, the president's pilot got into trouble for refusing to land the plane in Tbilisi during the war in South Ossetia. Kaczynski, rushing to show support for President Saakashvili, was outraged at the decision to divert the aircraft to neighboring Azerbaijan for safety reasons.
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What a terrible tragedy...hopefully the situation quoted in the news story above, if accurate, doesn't show a pattern of pressure to do the impossible.

Regardless, my deepest condolences to the family and friends of all aboard, and the Polish people.
 
Anyone know what kind of approaches were available?

I can't think of the handle right now, but to the Chief Pilot who works in Russia...Anything you can tell us about this airport? Have you been there beforE?
 
calcapt said:
Perhaps we can learn from this that reverting to plan B or plan C may provide more favorable results than pushing plan A beyond safe limits. I am not judging the crew but preliminary information suggests that there was pressure (maybe self imposed) on the pilot(s) to land the airplane at the intended destination rather than consider other options.

A very sad day for Poland and it's people.
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My dad flew doctor killers in partnerships (he was a veterinarian so I guess that's a doc) most of his life. One of his old adages he told me was only if you are fat on gas you may consider giving it a second try, and if you can't get in on the second try time to divert period. Decision made on the ground before the flight. My dad is still alive but not flying anymore.
 
Without knowing how it was equipped it seems he might have pushed mins. Mins are mins for a reason. I doubt that tupe had sCATIIIC autoland with a fail safe auto pilot. Just a guess. CFITs like this happened all the time back in the day.
 
MikeOH58 said:
Anyone know what kind of approaches were available?

I can't think of the handle right now, but to the Chief Pilot who works in Russia...Anything you can tell us about this airport? Have you been there beforE?
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this is taken from an article at MSN.com
The Smolensk airfield is not equipped with an instrument landing system to guide planes to the ground.
 
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