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Quote from kristis917 : ... Snip ...

The animation is definitely a quick and dirty approximation, but if the flightpath is accurate, the polish pilots seriously mishandled the final approach. The plane itself went through big maintainance where a lot of avionics was updated, so it had nothing to do with outdated equipement. Problem is that in ex-USSR countries are altimeters calibrated to QFE barometric pressure. That means that the altimeter displays altitude _above the aerodrome_! (when you sit on the runway, altimeter shows zero). International rules operate with QNH pressure. Altimeter calibrated in such a way will show your altitude above sea level when you sit on the ground. It is obvious that when you use QFE altitudes as a reference with QNH-calibrated altimeter, you are lower that you think. How much lower you are depends on how high above the sea is the ground below you.
Tower itself cannot be of much help because in a fog it's impossible to see the aircraft. Radar won't help you either because active radars don't provide accurate altitude info. Secondary radars use altitude info recieved from the planes transponder, so if the plane's altimeters were wrong, so was the info the tower recieved.

On a different note, I've heard that TWR didn't recommend landing and even warned the pilots that they are too low during their fatal approach.
Dont they use low-altitude radar altimeter (relative to ground) in TU-154 apart from barometric one?

Here you have animation that is told to be on balck-box data (it is from newspaper and BBs are just read at the moment so I will wait till official one) http://www.youtube.com/v/LnPh7 ... or2=0xcfcfcf&hl=pl_PL
Quote from Klutch :So because i don't care that some random guy died, i should say RIP and give my condolensces?

Yeah nah, i'll be right.

If you don't care, just SHUT UP !
Quote from MadCatX :<...> _above the aerodrome_! (when you sit on the runway, altimeter shows zero).<...>

and the Smolensk airport is on the hill...
that makes the whole story even weirder :S
Some witness was nearly that airport when it happened and he didn't saw any fog.
Weird, isn't it?
Ok is it bad that i have just heard about this...

Anyway my condolences out to the family's and to the nation. Must be horrible, not nice at all
Quote :
Some witness was nearly that airport when it happened and he didn't saw any fog.
Weird, isn't it?

Information about visibility differs from the originally stated 150 m up to 500 m according to ATIS provided by the Smolensk airfield. I guess that 500 m visibility is considered to be quite OK for someone standing on the ground, but in the airplane flying at 300kph you see only 6 seconds ahead...

Quote :
Dont they use low-altitude radar altimeter (relative to ground) in TU-154 apart from barometric one?

There are no less than 3 independent altimeters in Tu-154M (at least those used by Czech Airlines had it like this), two barometric and one radar. Problem is that the radar altimeter in Tu-154M doesn't have a digital display but just analog gauge, so in case of a sudden change of the terrain profile there is a slight delay of the readout until the needle catches up. Radar altimeters also don't work reliably over cities and really rugged terrain.
For all we know the plane collided with trees and I'm not sure whether the radar altimeter would pick them up.

The ground proximity warning system also wouldn't warn the pilots as it is inactive when the aircraft is in the landing configuration (gear down and flaps extended).

I'm no expert but I guess that the crew was preoccupied with trying to visually find the runway and with the lack of advanced instrumentation they lost the track of their altitude.
OK, so this is how i get the story now...

1) the president of Poland was not invited, the russians invited just poland's ex-prime minister...

2) Poland's president got mad and organised the flight to smolensk himself...

3) they were flying...

4) when they came to smolensk, they saw that there was thick fog...

5) the pilots tried to contact the tower controll, and they denied their permition for landing.. ans suggested to land at Moscow...

6) the pilots told the president that they can't land there. So the president got mad, and ordered them to land.(considering the fact that like 2 years ago when president was flying to Tibilisi, there were same conditions, so the pilots landed the plane at Azerbaijan... the president cursed the pilots...and i'm not 100% sure, but the pilots lost their licenses because of that)

7) the pilots decided to land at the Smolensk airport as ordered by the president, not wanting to loose their careers (as they have made big ones), so they hoped for the best and tried to land the plane...

8) they tried to land the plane WITHOUT TOWER CONTROLL's permition, but the tower controll should have seen them comeing in and should have helped them to land... but as i think the TC didn't (because of some russian TC being stuck up).

9) with low visibility (what means not seeing the runway) and no help from the ground Pilots tried their best to land the plane...

10)they have FAILED, and 132 people died...

11) we will never know the real story, as the russians like to hide a lot of things from publicity. x]
... unless we have some russian insider from the government here at LFS forum...
Quote from kristis917 :
... unless we have some russian insider from the government here at LFS forum...

maybe not, but there is a Russian insider somewhere, with actual information, not just the official press release. Because if there is one thing i have learned, I can't even trust my own government to tell the whole truth, much less the Russian government. Or really any government for that matter, people in power will abuse it, and use it to make themselves look good.
[*]
Quote from MadCatX :Information about visibility differs from the originally stated 150 m up to 500 m according to ATIS provided by the Smolensk airfield. I guess that 500 m visibility is considered to be quite OK for someone standing on the ground, but in the airplane flying at 300kph you see only 6 seconds ahead...

There are no less than 3 independent altimeters in Tu-154M (at least those used by Czech Airlines had it like this), two barometric and one radar. Problem is that the radar altimeter in Tu-154M doesn't have a digital display but just analog gauge, so in case of a sudden change of the terrain profile there is a slight delay of the readout until the needle catches up. Radar altimeters also don't work reliably over cities and really rugged terrain.
For all we know the plane collided with trees and I'm not sure whether the radar altimeter would pick them up.

As far we know that visibility was 400m - so the pilot didnt need any altimeter in fact to see how high he is - 10m or 50m. He obviously ignored (or didnt know the procedure which is very doubtful) expectation for response with altitude - with no ILS tower control sends info on distance, waits for altitude answer and corrects the pilot with proper landing path, which controllers know probably by heart.

So summing this up - the pilot was several times informed that he was t00 low but he pursued like a suicide.

If he had any pressure on him - it would be disqualifying for the captain of the air vessel if he approved pressure from the passengers and rejected sugestions by the control tower.
As the first news are coming out...
(Dad was in the italian air accident commission, "human errors" his job so can have some insights sometimes)
Pilot tryed 4 approaches. Russians told him to go to another airport. Problem is very experienced pilots try to do risky things sometimes, very good pilots are not afraid of abort landing and going to another airport when it may not be safe. Quite some problems instructors have with very good ex-fighters pilots (you just dont pilot president aircraft if you are not good) that dont remeber they dont have anymore ejection seats. Expecially if they fear the anger of a full government+presidents+politicians+etc... for a delay of a very important ceremony...
Oh and seems no ils there (well they werent last time my father landed there, passed quite some years though).
And i'm very sorry, seems my engRish it's getting worse as time passes
Anyway will know more as time passes, RIP to all the people that died in the accident

There are countless example of crashes or "near-misses" because pilot (skilled or not) tryed to land when it wasnt safe. A delay/shame for an abort landing it's always better than a crash
I understood everything just fine, i only can't figure out what "ils" might be..
R.i.p
Quote from Osco :are you a native english (or american) speaker?

Mayabe but i got feelings, not like you.

I Think Pilots mistake, why ? because he dont listining instructions from tower, i read he trys 3 or 4 times landing.
That animation is confusing, it looks like pilot error/CFIT, but I don't get why the pilot tried 4 approaches if the tower told him not to and he was too low?
Quote from mrodgers :Just one question with all the arguing over what Klutch said and the others...

What would have you hypocrites said if a thread popped up here two years ago that "George Bush killed as Air Force 1 crashed?" You all would have been on here posting the same thing that Klutch and the others you are flaming said.

If you read one of JPeace's recent posts in this thread, you can see that no one (except no-lifers like Klutch) would dare to say anything bad about G.W. Bush, no matter how low his IQ is or how stupid some of his decisions were.

EDIT: Re-read the thread and I think that another factor was the plane's age and origin...I don't want to apportion any blame on the aircraft, but I have to say that Tupolev isn't the most popular manufacturer in the aviation industry and it's not known for building strong, rugged planes either. I've seen some pictures from a Tupolev crash last year and the thing, even if not on fire, was scattered in a million pieces across a plain land. And what makes it worse in the most recent crash is that the aircraft in question was 20 years old, so even if it wasn't in a retirement age, it certainly had gone past its prime; and its fuselage wasn't certainly as strong as many of today's new civil jets. Just saying, again, that I don't want to blame the plane because I might be wrong.
Quote from Senninha25 :no one (except no-lifers) would dare to say anything bad about G.W. Bush

Guess i must be a no-lifer then.

Ho-hum
Get over it... geez
Quote from kristis917 :OK, so this is how i get the story now...

1) the president of Poland was not invited, the russians invited just poland's ex-prime minister...

2) Poland's president got mad and organised the flight to smolensk himself...

3) they were flying...

4) when they came to smolensk, they saw that there was thick fog...

5) the pilots tried to contact the tower controll, and they denied their permition for landing.. ans suggested to land at Moscow...

6) the pilots told the president that they can't land there. So the president got mad, and ordered them to land.(considering the fact that like 2 years ago when president was flying to Tibilisi, there were same conditions, so the pilots landed the plane at Azerbaijan... the president cursed the pilots...and i'm not 100% sure, but the pilots lost their licenses because of that)

7) the pilots decided to land at the Smolensk airport as ordered by the president, not wanting to loose their careers (as they have made big ones), so they hoped for the best and tried to land the plane...

8) they tried to land the plane WITHOUT TOWER CONTROLL's permition, but the tower controll should have seen them comeing in and should have helped them to land... but as i think the TC didn't (because of some russian TC being stuck up).

9) with low visibility (what means not seeing the runway) and no help from the ground Pilots tried their best to land the plane...

10)they have FAILED, and 132 people died...

11) we will never know the real story, as the russians like to hide a lot of things from publicity. x]
... unless we have some russian insider from the government here at LFS forum...

Chaha got a 10/ A/ 100 today for this at history class xDDD
Im late in this thread but..... R.I.P is all i can say. Mostly officials on the plane?Thats really awful.
I think nobody can compare this tragedy to another. I always regret more when polish people die than when some foreigners and probably most of you have the same about your nation. I never supported most of politics that died near Smolensk, but I regret them because they were Polish and I think this is normal. On the other hand died huge part of Polish goverment what make people unsure about future of our country, especially those who remember old days. I suppose that we never will know what happened there and any conspiracy theories dont make sense imo, because one said that there wasnt any fog, second said that there was a fog and when pilot saw that something is wrong tried to pull up the plane, because he heard reving up engines, etc. But the fact is that they died and our great nation have now another problem, where our president should be buried, 400 people protested, because someone decided to do this on the Wawel, this is sick.
Go figure.

(Probably fake but...)

(Also, the man who filmed this was stabbed soon after. He was taken to the hospital in critical condition but then someone unplugged the life support machines and stabbed him 3 more times. Let the arguments begin!)

FGED GREDG RDFGDR GSFDG