Reports: VIPs May Have Pressured Flight Crew In Russian Crash

[EHM-1749 Hector]

 
Investigators so far have found no mechanical problems with the Tupolev 154 that crashed on Saturday, killing the president of Poland and 95 others, but they are now looking into reports that various VIPs, either on the airplane or elsewhere, may have put pressure on the flight crew to attempt a landing despite the weather. The airplane was attempting to land in thick fog at a military airfield at Smolensk, in western Russia, when it crashed, although air traffic controllers had warned the crew about the airport conditions and advised them to land elsewhere. The passengers were en route to a memorial service to honor Polish soldiers who had been executed by Soviet secret police in 1940. If the flight had diverted, the service would have been delayed, according to CTV News. Many of those on board were high-ranking Polish officials. The airplane was operated by the ministry of national defense of the Republic of Poland, according to Pravda, specifically for the transportation of top officials.

Pravda also said the military airfield uses a different instrument landing system than civil airfields, and the fight crew may have been more accustomed to the civil procedures. A Yak-40 with journalists on board landed safely at Smolensk just before the Tu-154; however, a military Il-76 diverted to a Moscow airport, Pravda said. "It is worthy of note that the Il-76 was piloted by a very experienced pilot who was very familiar with the area," according to Pravda. Although the airplane doesn't appear to have been a factor, fatal crashes in Tu-154s have occurred at least nine times in the last 10 years, according to the Associated Press. The airplane was built during the Soviet era, said Viktor Baranets, a military journalist quoted by Pravda. "More than half of the civil planes in Poland were made in the USSR," Baranets said. "Many of them had to have their engines replaced several times already. ... Tu-154 planes crashed in Poland twice. Both crashes were caused because of poor repairs."

[EHM-1465 Dominic]

Unfortunately, as with all large air crashes, the press want instant answers and will roll out theories from anybody that has a link with aviation in an attempt to make dramatic headlines.
 
It's simply too early for anybody outside the investigation team to be sure what caused this crash and, sadly, speculation can do irreparable harm to the reputation (and family) of the flight crew, who won't ever be able to give their account.

A terrible tragedy for all involved.

[EHM-1749 Hector]

If I were the presidential pilot I would do what I had to do as the Pilot in Command, no matter what the president would say.
As the PIC, my mission is to take the passengers safely to their destination and if I decide that it is not possible for whatever condition is present, I will abort and go to an alternate. No matter what the president could order. The president can rule the country but the pilot rules the airplane.
I cannot believe that the president could order the pilot to land in such adverse conditions and that the pilot obeyed knowing the high degree of difficulty. Not, unless he were a kamikaze pilot which I don't believe either.
Our flying instructor always said that he could try twice for a landing but never on a third time because that had 100% chance to be fatal.
This pilot tried three times without success. The fouth time was fatal.

I remember that on Nov 7, 1999 I was on my way to Guatemala with an stop in San Jose de Costa Rica to change planes. Very low minimums. The first approach was aborted. The second approach was aborted. I was really nervous and thought that if the pilot was going for the third I would stand up and start yelling very loud to avoid that attempt. Fortunately the pilot decided to go for the alternate in Liberia. While there I had the chance to talk with the pilot, identified myself as a private pilot and told him of what our instructor used to say. He said he had the very same thought. That's why he didn't try the third approach. When I told him of my intentions in he tried it, he just started laughing and said that he would do the same if he were a passenger.

[EHM-2089 Vincent]

If there was pressure from anyone to the crew and in particular to the captain, then this is a very bad precedent!! and a fitting reply to what can happen when the supreme authority of the aircraft is pressurized to do something he is actually not supposed to do.

I am sure the captain, in his training has received his due to know what to do when situations of weather take over. I also recollect another crash of officials like this which went down, landing in bad weather - heavy rains!!

May their souls rest in peace.

[EHM-1749 Hector]

Pilots Likely Not Pressured In Russian Crash
 
A review of the cockpit voice recorder of the Polish government aircraft that crashed in Russia last week revealed no evidence of pressure from any of the passengers on the crew to proceed with a landing they'd been warned not to attempt by air traffic controllers. "The flight recorder, whose tapes are being deciphered, did not register any pressure on crew members," an unnamed official with the Russian committee investigating the accident told Interfax News. The theory was floated shortly after the crash based on the knowledge that the pilot had been told by ATC to divert to a safer airport and because Polish President Lech Kaczynski, who died along with 94 others in the crash, had tried to force a pilot to land in poor weather in Tblisi in 2008. The pilot in that case defied the president and diverted. In this case, it appears it was all the pilot's idea. Anatoly Muravyov, an air traffic controller on duty at the time, told the newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda that the aircraft had not been cleared to land and all he and his colleagues could do was watch and wait. He said the "pilot's desire to land at any costs" was, in his opinion, a factor in the crash.

The investigators said the crew likely had a few seconds to consider the result of their decision as the plane struck trees before disintegrating. "One could say that the crew was aware of the inevitability of the coming catastrophe, if only due to the plane shaking after the wings hit the trees, which we are certain happened," Andrzej Seremet, Poland's chief prosecutor, told a Polish radio station. The aircraft was packed with Polish officials and dignitaries on their way to a ceremony marking the 70th anniversary of a massacre of Polish citizens by Russian secret police in the Katyn Forest during the Second World War.

[EHM-2097 Andrei]

This starts to look ugly.

The pilots attempting to land after being advised by ATC not to do so is one thing, but attempting to land without a clearance sounds far worse.

Unless it's a "press thing" again, where a reporter with little knowledge on the subject put on paper what he could understand from a controller all excited about being interviewed.

On the other hand, Hector's story about no third attempt is instructive. I had not heard about this rule (of thumb?), but on second thought I saw it once applied in practice. Due to a particularly persistent thunderstorm just over the airport, the pilot tried to land once, twice then diverted. As did many others so the not-so-large airport that everyone had filed as an alternate became soon very crowded!

Andrei

[EHM-1749 Hector]

A precedent set in 2008?
quote:

"On Aug. 12, 2008, in an incident that was little reported outside of Poland at the time, Captain Grzegorz Pietruczuk flying Kaczynski to Georgia refused the president’s "direct order" to land in the capital, Tbilisi, because of the country’s military conflict with Russia, diverting instead to neighboring Azerbaijan. During the flight President Kaczynski went into the aircraft's cabin and told Captain Pietruczuk that someone who decides to be an officer "cannot be timid."

President Kaczynski told journalists, who were also traveling on the plane, "we will deal with him after we return to Poland," the Gazeta Wyborcza newspaper reported the following day. Kaczynski's Law and Justice party later demanded that the insubordinate pilot be punished, but Poland's defense minister, a member of an opposition party, instead awarded Captain Pietruczuk with a medal." end of quote

I have marked the insubordinate on bold and italic because, on my opinion, this is not correct. Can the Commander of a vessel become insubordinate for refusing to follow an order that he considers inappropiate or that it compromises safety?
More about on http://mishasrussiablog.blogspot.com/2010/04/did-kaczynski-order-polish-pilot-to.html

[EHM-2097 Andrei]

Can the Commander of a vessel become insubordinate for refusing to follow an order that he considers inappropiate or that it compromises safety?

Well I'm afraid it depends...

You are certainly right when it comes to civil aviation but things are different with the military (and as far as I understand this is about an army pilot). I am not aware of the Polish Constitution, but the president may also be commander in chief of all arms, and in this case I think he is entitled to issue direct orders.

However, that captain definitely deserves his medal, because his duty was to ensure the president safety, even by protecting him from himself. And he risked his career to fullfill this duty.

Now the question that hurts is: did the captain who failed the landing at Moscow know that se same president tried to destroy the career of another pilot, just for diverting? And if he did, is it correct to say that no pressure was made on him to land despite the conditions?

Andrei