The Polish president's plane has crashed
 

The Polish president's plane has crashed as it approached a Russian airport, killing all people onboard.

President Lech Kaczynski was travelling with his wife from Warsaw to Smolensk airport, 220 miles southwest of Moscow.

Sergei Antufiev, the regional governor of the Smolensk, said that everyone on board had been killed.

Source

According to some sources, ground controllers from Smolensk airport Control Tower ordered pilot to land in Minsk airport due to very bad weather conditions in Smolensk airport ( fog ). Pilot refused and tried to make at least 4 attempts to land.

My sincere condolences to families of victims.....

Rest in peace and may the families and friends evventually find peace again.

in addition
 

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

Source

This is a unbelievable disaster.

The speculation is coming in a bit fast from both sides, but I suppose that is to be expected. Could be a very well be a combination or pilot error, illegal use of GPS, a demanding president and airplane failure.

Truly nothing will be for certain unless the black box is found and released.

The reason for the trip:
Katyn massacre - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The speculation
 

quote :

A top Russian military official said air traffic controllers at the Smolensk airport had several times ordered the crew of the plane not to land, warned that it was descending below the glide path, and recommended it reroute to another airport...."Nevertheless, the crew continued the descent,’’ said Lieutenant general Aleksandr Alyoshin, the first deputy chief of the Russian Air Force Staff. “Unfortunately, the result was tragic.’’ Both black boxes detailing data and transmissions from the plane were found at the crash site.

The presidential plane was fully overhauled in December, the general director of the Aviakor aviation maintenance plant in Samara, Russia told Rossiya-24. The plant repaired the plane’s three engines, retrofitted electronic and navigation equipment, and updated the interior, Alexei Gusev said. He said there could be no doubts that the plane was flightworthy.

Source

Which "navigation equipment" mr Gusev told about, I wonder? And I think they will publish in a wide media certain info from flight data / voice recorders (aka black boxes) ASAP.

I don't know how the Polish presidents plane does things, but the flying decisions should be up to the pilot and if that is so, he made a foolish mistake. And looks like Poland has no vice-president and the leader of parliament takes the president's place.

Reconstruction
 

Here is a reconstruction of disaster :

Dailymotion - Jak doszło do katastrofy prezydenckiego samolotu - wideo z kanału Wiadomości i Polityka

According to the version, they flew in a heavy fog using by radioaltimeter.

before Smolensk airport
 

Polish AF 1 : 39 hours before the disaster.....

YouTube - Посадка самолета президента Польши 8 апреля 2010