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Reports: VIPs May Have Pressured Flight Crew In Russian Crash

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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:

--- Quote from: EHM-1749 Hector on April 19, 2010, 04:41:43 pm ---Can the Commander of a vessel become insubordinate for refusing to follow an order that he considers inappropiate or that it compromises safety?

--- End quote ---

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

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