Polish report into Kaczynski crash blames Russian

Poland released a final report Friday on the possible causes of the Tu-154 plane crash that killed Polish President Lech Kaczynski last year, blaming both the Polish flight crew and Russian air traffic controllers. The report said the accident may have been caused by a combination of reasons, including erroneous commands given by a Russian traffic controller and inadequate training of Polish crew, in particular the fact that the pilot was too late in aborting the first attempt to land and go around for a second approach. It said the flight crew did not want to land but only make a “trial approach.” The Smolensk airport did not ensure the safety of the flight, “including due to poor visibility,” the report said. The Polish commission also stated that the Smolensk air traffic controller gave incorrect commands to the crew of the President’s Tu-154. “The controller gave incorrect instructions,” the report’s authors said. “There was no chance of an automatic go-around for a second approach. The aircraft was working properly until the moment it collided with the ground,” the report said. The Polish commission stated that the Russian controller responsible for the air traffic zone had little experience. “This was only the second flight he had handled in a year and he gave the crew erroneous instructions,” commission experts said at a press conference in Warsaw on Friday. The report also said that the aircraft’s Terrain Warning Approach System (TAWS), which should have warned the crew that they were in danger of impacting the ground, was not ready for the flight. “The TAWS system was not properly configured for a flight to Smolensk. It should have been set up and activated by the co-pilot,” experts presenting the report in Warsaw said. In addition, the Polish commission said the Russian air traffic controller at Smolensk gave the crew incorrect information about the aircraft’s position on the approach. The report said the crew had erroneously ignored the TAWS warning, descending 60 meters below the critical level. The Russia-based CIS Interstate Aviation Commission (MAK) said on June 8 the aircraft’s TAWS and flight computer were in good working order. Analysis by a laboratory belonging to the UASC company in Redmond, USA, showed that the equipment “provided the crew and flight control system with the necessary information,” MAK said. The report also said Polish Air Force chief Gen. Andrzej Blasik, who was on board, put no pressure on the crew to land at Smolensk. “The Polish commission has found no evidence that the Air Force commander put any pressure on the crew to land the plane,” the report said. It added, however, that the crew “was under some pressure due to the high profile nature of the flight with the country’s top officials onboard.” The Russian report said Blasik’s mere presence in the cockpit put huge pressure on the pilots and was a factor in them attempting to land despite the bad weather conditions. It also suggested Blasik was under the influence of alcohol at the time. The Polish crew made the right decision but lacked experience and training to carry them out in poor weather conditions, said Interior Minister Jerzy Miller, who headed the Polish commission. “The pilots decided to go for a second approach,” Miller said. “They did not want to land in difficult conditions, they were not suicidal.” He said the investigators had come up with 45 recommendations based on the results of the probe, which could enhance flight safety in the future. David Learmount, safety and operations editor for Flight International, and a former RAF flying instructor, said the Polish report was badly flawed. “They knew the cause of the accident was the crew, but the politicians in Poland have long been saying Russia was to blame, so the only thing they could do was to put some of the blame on the Russian controllers. They haven’t really done a good job of it. They’ve got to squeeze something out of this lemon. The report admits that the crew was badly trained, but I’d say there was more to it than that. There was a fair amount of bad discipline on the flight too,” he said. Polish investigators have conducted three test flights of another presidential Tu-154 airliner to scrutinize the last seconds of the flight, including whether the pilots had a chance to pull the plane up and if they could have gone around the landing site a second time. On April 10, 2010, the Polish president's plane crashed in heavy fog as it attempted to land at an airfield near the western Russian city of Smolensk. The presidential delegation was flying to Smolensk to mark the 70th anniversary of the 1940 Katyn massacre of thousands of Polish officers by Soviet secret police. Then Polish President Lech Kaczynski, his wife and a host of other top officials on board were killed. The Russia-based Interstate Aviation Committee (MAK), along with leading flight safety experts, laid the blame for the crash on the Polish crew. Polish politicians denounced the report, saying it was one-sided or a cover-up.