Polish President and wife killed in Tu-154 crash

[Geebee]

Very sad news but the Tu-154-M has made more victims.
This time it was the official presidential Tu-154-M that crashed near Smolensk airport in Western Russia killing the president, his wife, the governor of the Polish national bank and almost 90 people in total. More recent info even speak of around 130 victims. Cynically enough the plane was in Russia for events related to the Katyn massacre.

I am sure more details will become available as more news becomes available.
RIP to those who were on board.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8612825.stm

[Geebee]

TVN (a Polish tv channel) just stated that this was the 4th attempted approach in fog and that ATC had suggested diversions to Minsk airport because of the weather.

[EconomyClass]

Wow. The presidential family doesn't travel on its own plane. How does that help with security?

[Jerrycobra Boeing]

this is a sad day for poland, with a good chunk of the government taken away, RIP to all those that perished

[eTang]

that looks very bad from the CNN video:
http://edition.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/eu...ex.html?hpt=T1


RIP and my condolence for all family, relatives and polish citizens!

[ErwinS]

Very sad news. A horrible crash with so many lost. Seems to be CFT.

Callsign was PLF101 so the a/c was likely to be serial 101.

RIP.

[Peter_K]

Originally Posted by EconomyClass

Wow. The presidential family doesn't travel on its own plane.

How did you arrive at that conclusion? It was a government, presidential plane. Sort of a local equivalent of Air Force One.

[EconomyClass]

Originally Posted by Peter_K

How did you arrive at that conclusion? It was a government, presidential plane. Sort of a local equivalent of Air Force One.

With 132 passengers? Who were all the rest, media?

[Peter_K]

Originally Posted by EconomyClass

With 132 passengers? Who were all the rest, media?

88, possibly 89 on board. Members of parliament, other government officials, representatives of armed forces, church, combatants.

[eTang]

Originally Posted by Geebee

TVN (a Polish tv channel) just stated that this was the 4th attempted approach in fog and that ATC had suggested diversions to Minsk airport because of the weather.

Has this been confirmed?

[EconomyClass]

I wonder if the Secret Service ever contradicts the President of the US in order to perform its duty to the nation. I hope so. I can't believe getting elected insures superhuman wisdom on the president's part.

[guamainiac]

Ah! There was an implication by someone that the ATC was operating by Chicago Rules .. but, they only apply to the investigation.

The ATC handling and agreement (by whom), was never answered.

[Northwester]

Originally Posted by guamainiac

Ah! There was an implication by someone that the ATC was operating by Chicago Rules .. but, they only apply to the investigation.

The ATC handling and agreement (by whom), was never answered.

The Plane: The TU-154M, 101, was the Polish Government's military Air vessel in service with the Polish Air Force’s 36th Special Aviation Regiment, operated by, and under jurisdiction of the Polish Ministry of National Defense. On April 10, 2010, the Tupolev TU-154M, 101, was conducting a flight designated as "HEAD" ("Important") with the President of the Republic of Poland, Lech Kaczynski, and 95 other individuals onboard. This flight was communicated to the Russian Federation as a military flight. Flights of governmental Air vessels traveling in Russian Federation airspace, are regulated by Russian Federal Aviation Laws. According with the Russian Ministry of Defense regulatory laws, and specifically, the Clause (No. 275 / FAPPPGosA) from September 24, 2004, regulating the military flights, flight supervisors (ground controllers) are obligated, at their discretion, to approve, or to forbid, landing of military Air vessels.

The Chicago Convention on International Civil Aviation and the Investigative Jurisdiction:
"Article 3 : Civil and state aircraft
(a) This Convention shall be applicable only to civil
aircraft, and shall not be applicable to state aircraft.
(b) Aircraft used in military, customs and police services
shall be deemed to be state aircraft [...]

Denis Chagnon ("ICAO"), the International Civil Aviation Organization's spokesman: "ICAO is the International Civil Aviation Organization. The crash in April [2010] was [a crash of the] state aircraft. It was not a civilian aircraft"

Flight Plan: PLF 101-I-M (“M” – military), Instrument Flight, via restricted HEAD air corridor. Departure EPW A050, Air Speed N0400 (400 knots/700 km/h), Altitude F270 (27,000 feet). Departure from Okecie, Warsaw, towards the coordinate BAMSO Z182, into the air corridor ASKIL B102; Flight Destination ZZZZ015, Secondary Airports: (1) UMII (Vitebsk - (Витебск), (2) Minsk (Минск) (UMSS); Flight Operator: OPR/Polish Air Force; Flight Status: STS/HEAD (President, Prime-Minister, or Marshal of the Sejm onboard); Flight Date: DOF/100410.

[MCM]

On the other hand "Tower, AF1 going around" is not asking permission to go around, it's informing the ATC that they ARE going around. And the only acceptable reply to an eventual "No, AF1 continue the landing, you are a military flight and I give the orders here" would be a "Fuck you" (ok, "Unable" might be more appropriate).

Unable might be more appropriate... but I think your first suggestion might be the one delivered in private

For them to have tried landing, several conditions would have to be met: a permission from the ATC (and ATC can issue such a permission only if they can see the plane from the tower, otherwise they order GA), ground/RWY visiblity at decision height...

I have NEVER heard of a situation where on an instrument approach the tower must visibily sight the aircraft prior to giving landing clearance.

[Northwester]

Originally Posted by MCM

I have NEVER heard of a situation where on an instrument approach the tower must visibily sight the aircraft prior to giving landing clearance.

They got a "conditional" landing permission from the ATC. If at the decision height the ATC can observe the plane, they issue a final landing clearance. Otherwise they order a go around. This is a standard operating procedure at Russian military airdromes.

Have you ever landed at a Russian military airdrome?

[Northwester]

One thing still bothered me besides the length of the MM signal. The altitude alert was set for 100m (radalt) but it fired its alert when the plane was below 60m above ground. Then I realized that I left those alerts where the Russian CVR transcript showed them. But when I listened to the recording I noticed that they formed one sound block with the Nav calling the altitude etc. So I moved the altitude sound alert, MM signal, AP alerts to match their location with other sounds in the recording. Suddenly the altitude alert is exactly where the plane crosses the 100m distance to the ground (point D) and the MM signal starts at altitude of 56m (point E), which would be perfectly fine for the 2.5 sec length of the signal. Also the force is applied to the control column at the same time as the F/O repeats the GA call. This also works with the new assumed trajectory (light-blue dashed line). The trajectory based on report flight data would have generated the altitude alert much earlier.

So why would the Russians move the whole sound block few seconds forward? Doing this they raised red flags with the strange behavior of TAWS, length of MM signal, and the time of altitude alert.

I think they were trying to show that the pilots were using radalt, not baro alt, and that their actions were too late to save the plane. You can see in the new plot that their actions were immediate, the sufficient force was applied to the control column before the last safe GA point. Most likely they were dealing with some other failure of the systems that prevented them from saving the plane.