A couple of interesting opinions from BBC site :
1.
486. At 8:31pm on 10 Apr 2010, Patrick wrote:
I am a Brit living in Poland for 13 years and I would like to offer condolences for those who lost family and friends today. I am also sure that the Polish nation will come out of this stronger as they have a truly amazing ability to come together in the face of adversity.
Whilst this is a tragedy it is I feel important to understand the conditions this event happened under, given the suspicion being piled on Russia at this point, which is very dangerous in my view.
1. The planes carrying the delegates were very old and have been due for replacement for many years now. On many occasions the dignitaries have not been able to use the planes as they were grounded
2. The Russian ground control refused planes earlier this morning and wanted to refuse the Polish plane as well, advising it to land in Minsk due to the poor weather. This advice was ignored by the Polish delegation
3. The Polish
pilot attempted 3 landings before the 4th and final attempt. Normal procedure in these circumstances is the for the pilot to go to alternate airfield after 2 failed attempts
4.
The Polish president had previously come into conflict with his pilots for not landing in Georgia after the conflict made the airport unsafe in the pilot’s opinion. Afterwards there were reported rows as the president was upset that his opinions were not heard
Whilst Katyn is rightly remembered as an atrocity (please visit the Polish war museum for more details) it is not helpful 70 years later to liken the 2 situations: one a war crime and one a tragic accident.
2.
480. At 8:07pm on 10 Apr 2010, darren wrote:
Terrible tragedy. As an airline pilot for more then thirty years I must say I am shocked that elite Polish Air Force pilots can make kind of mistake they apparently did . It looks they made four attempts to land on the airport well bellow weather minimums for non precision approach that was most likely in use in Russian Air Force base. Visibility was only 500 m which is only good for cat II or cat III approaches and that is something Russian Air Force base wouldn’t have. I would be very much suppressed if they have even cat I as their primary approach is double beckon requiring at least 1000m visibility. How they can even dispatch flight to airport closed for meteorological reasons. It might be that they were using GPS approach (Satellite navigation) primarily or as a supplement , what would be illegal and irresponsible.
Most Airlines limited number of approaches before compulsory diversion to an alternate to 2, for many good reasons , like pilot’s fatigue, fuel……
They apparently made four attempts and ignored ATC suggestion to divert and in the last fatal approach even ATC order for go-around. It looks like gross failure of CRM (cockpit resource management) that could have happened if Captain was very senior military rank and more junior first officer who dare not to say too much. This tragedy will probably lead to many discussions about VIP pilots training, experience and paring as well as regulations governing those flights .
Darren
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