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[zirk]

Plane crashing into hills in fog whilst attempting to land............? Happened before and will happen again......

Bit early to read something more sinister into it if you ask me........!

True enough, probably down to Pilot error, who didn't believe in 'third time lucky'.

[ChevetteNick]

probably down to Pilot error

Pilots always get the shitty end of the stick as they can't defend themselves

[Nickbat]

As I said earlier, this is very sad for Poland and Polish people everywhere.

I post this merely as interesting conjecture:

Lech Kaczynski himself may have forced the pilot to land, despite the disapproval of the airport staff. Lech Kaczynski has previously survived 5 other air accidents and has a record of telling the pilots to land.

http://motls.blogspot.com/2010/04/lech-kaczynski-1949-2010.html#more

..and from the comments on the same website:

There is an explanation for this. Lech Kaczynski made a promise in the past that he will never visit Moscow (he had bad relations with Belarus too). So when the Russians told the pilots to land in Moscow or Minsk (due to the bad weather and the fog) they refused, thinking it was some kind of a trick to force the president to land there. That's why the pilot made five attempts to land in Smolensk. It was very important for the president not to land in Moscow.

 :-/

[Entwood]

Somethings not right, four attempts to land the Aircraft into a modern Military Base?, even if it is an old plane it would have basic Glide scope capabilities and GPS on board, or worst case Radar Vectoring from the Air Base, no doubt we shall found out?

The Russians have recovered the Black Box already, it will be interesting to see if that stays in Russia or gets sent back to Poland for analysis!   

Would not be allowed under UK rules.

Pilots are only allowed 2 attempts then MUST divert to nominated diversion airfield.

This is purely and simply to prevent accidents of this type caused by "press-on-itus" .... where the pilot convinces himself that he can "get in" next time .. and pushes the limits firther and further until he breaks them and crashes.

Unfortunately I have seen this many times ...in the simulator .. where I was part of a training team teaching and evaluating pilots in order to prevent this sort of tragedy.

Sad event .. but given what I have heard of the circumstances ... no conspiracy just "pilot error" probably caused by "pressure" to deliver the VIP's to where they wanted to be.

RIP 

[Nickbat]

"10/04/10 0600 Utc/ Wind Speed In Meter Per Second /Smolensk/ Precipitation Nil/ Manned Station /Cloud Base Unknown / Visibility 0.5 Km / Sky Obscured / Wind 140/3 Mps / Temp+0.9/+0.9/ QFE 995.6/QNH 1025.5/ Nosig/ Fog /sky Not Visible/ No Change/ Previous Weather Fog / 8 Octas Stratus / Min Temp For Previous 24h +0.5 //"

500 metres visibility, sky obscured and 8 octas (probably below 200 feet). IMHO, that's bad news - even with Cat III and full ILS.

I think you're probably right about VIP pressure, Entwood.

[Entwood]

"10/04/10 0600 Utc/ Wind Speed In Meter Per Second /Smolensk/ Precipitation Nil/ Manned Station /Cloud Base Unknown / Visibility 0.5 Km / Sky Obscured / Wind 140/3 Mps / Temp+0.9/+0.9/ QFE 995.6/QNH 1025.5/ Nosig/ Fog /sky Not Visible/ No Change/ Previous Weather Fog / 8 Octas Stratus / Min Temp For Previous 24h +0.5 //"

500 metres visibility, sky obscured and 8 octas (probably below 1000 feet). IMHO, that's bad news - even with Cat III and full ILS.

I think you're probably right about VIP pressure, Entwood.

If they had that it would not have been a problem .. they would have landed off the first approach !! But an aircraft THAT old would not be CatIII ... I doubt it had any sort of autoland ability. Therefore normal ILS rules apply... or should have .. the fact he hit a tree shows they did not ...

[Nickbat]

Just to correct what was posted here earlier.

Apparently the aircraft did not make several attempts to land but impacted trees on first approach. The controller apparently conversed with the crew in Russian, which the crew could understand, but had problems with in read back.

Three flights were to land at the Air Base in that period of time: the first was a Yakovlev YAK-40 carrying journalists accompanying Poland's president, which made a safe landing. The second was a Russian Ilyushin IL-76, which diverted after two unsuccessful approaches. The third was the presidential Tupolev TU-154M.

http://www.avherald.com/h?article=429ec5fa&opt=0

[bigboykarl]

i knew mr sheen couldn't really fly

[Banjax]

i knew mr sheen couldn't really fly

they're making a clean sweep of the area