Plane crash in Russia

[Jumper]

Sad and terrible,
and a lot of political impact ,
as it was the Polish President and much of Polands top political and military leaders visting the site of the Soviet massacre of 20,000 Polish officers in World War II.

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/11/world/europe/11poland.html

[Blues Fairy]

I bet the conspiracy theories will start popping up immediately. 
And worst of all, they'll sound very, very convincing. 

[Ranetka]

I bet the conspiracy theories will start popping up immediately. 
And worst of all, they'll sound very, very convincing. 

Yes, Polish forums (understandaby) are extremely anti-Russian right now. Do not know how our Poles at work will speak to me on Monday :-(

I have spoken to my cousin today. He is an airspace engineer, spent good 10 years or so as a military airplane technician. He said by instructions you should not try to land more than twice on TU-154. This plane is not possible to land in bad visibility, after two attempts you must go to another airport. They were offered to land in Moscow or Minsk. The pilot tried to land four times, obviously the president planes pilot has the highest possible experience and knew he should not try to land four times. Perhaps it was his passengers political decision, who knows...

[Jumper]

possibly he was being ordered to (the pilot)
the TU 154 has a bad accident record and aeroflot discontinued its use..

also the pilot had dumped fuel on previous attempts ,
so by that last try he would not have been able to divert to minks or moscow anyway..
very tragic ,and seems a lot of bad decisions

[kievstar]

I have heard the pilot was warned to land in Moscow or Minsk.  I wonder if this is true or if Russia is trying to cover it up.  Putin also said he would take over the investigation.

I tend to believe that the pilot was warned and made a terrible mistake.  But I doubt 100% of the Polish people will believe this.

I used to work in Poland so I sent some sorry emails to my friends.  Was a little surprised as some of them did not like there president at all and only felt sorry for the others who died. 

[I/O]

TU 154 has a bad accident record

The envy of none.

aeroflot discontinued its use..

Since when? I flew A/F TU 154 Moscow St Pete July 09.

[tfcrew]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tupolev_Tu-154

[Shadow]

Actually the TU-154 is known to be very solid, if flown by experienced pilots.

Regarding the crash there is one prior rumoured incident that may have contributed to the crash.
In 2008 the Polish president was on his way to meet with the Georgian president, during the short war. At the time the pilot decided it was not safe to land and diverted to Azerbedijan. The compete crew was fired by the Polish president as a result.

At the time all was ready for the ceremony, and the flight was already running late. The pilot may have been fearful for his job when he decided not to divert.

If anything the relations between Poland and Russia have improved, as Russia has shown true compassion. Polish families were given free accomodation and travel in order to identify their relatives.

[BillyB]

At the time all was ready for the ceremony, and the flight was already running late. The pilot may have been fearful for his job when he decided not to divert.

That is pretty much what happened. They were running late, pilot told not to land by the control tower, pilots were told to land by top officials who were too arrogant to take the advice of their top pilots and the control tower. Game over. Although the plane was 26 years old, it was in good operating condition.