Breaking: Plane carrying Polish president crashes in Russia

[CaptainChewbacca]

He could land in Vladivostok, then take the Trans-Siberian railway. Naturally, I would imagine the Secret Service would freak out.

I'm not sure how long it would take, but the President of the US can't spend that much time on a train in an area that can't be reached by aircraft.

[MKSheppard]

The answer is so fucking simple.

Commandeer a Nuclear powered warship and do a sustained 30 knot run across the atlantic. It will only take five days.

[eion]

The answer is so fucking simple.

Commandeer a Nuclear powered warship and do a sustained 30 knot run across the atlantic. It will only take five days.

As usual Shep you're just not looking at all the options on the table.

Obama should launch himself aboard the Space Shuttle to the ISS, hijack the Soyuz lifeboat, and land in Poland. He'll be there in less than 3 hours.

[MKSheppard]

Obama should launch himself aboard the Space Shuttle to the ISS, hijack the Soyuz lifeboat, and land in Poland. He'll be there in less than 3 hours.

Has the shuttle actually even gotten close to launch yet? But that is an awesome idea. I am stealing it for Generic TechnoThriller #213.

[eion]

Has the shuttle actually even gotten close to launch yet? But that is an awesome idea. I am stealing it for Generic TechnoThriller #213.

Atlantis is in the VAB getting the ET and SRB attached as of the 13th, not sure where it is now.

Although technically he wouldn't even have to go to the ISS, since the Shuttle has a European abort option and has no engines to get cloged by awh, he could probably be in Poland in less than an hour after blastoff.

[PeZook]

Regrettably, due to ash clouds over Europe the US President will not be able to attend the funeral for Poland's President and First Lady. I hope the Polish people will be understanding, as it would be tragic and ironic to have a plane crash while traveling the funeral of people who died in a plane crash.

Well, Poles being Poles, some people understand, while others are all "Bah! The threat is overrated!", obviously thinking it's reasonable to expect POTUS (and other delegations from far away) to risk his life in order to attend a funeral.

Some people even bitched that we got the German President instead of their Chancellor to visit. The gall! They sent a higher dignitary than they announced! What a slap in the face!

I'm pretty sure the security people were massively relieved, though. I can't imagine the shit they had to go through in order to plan the arrival, transport and security for 70+ high-level delegations in a single week. Man.

The US will be represented by our Polish Ambassador, and Mr. Obama called the acting Polish President to personally express his regrets at not being able to attend.

Again, our condolences to all the relatives and friends of those who died.

The ceremony is done ; All things considered, it was quite a beautiful sendoff for the presidential pair, with quite a bit of flair. There were 21 cannon salvos, a street procession towards Wawel castle, a huge mass with Gregorian hymns and all that jazz.

Now that's laid to rest, we should get an announcement of the election date (it will probably happen around June 20th or so) Also, Lech Kaczynski's brother will run for the now vacant office. Some people are rather miffed about that.

[Tolya]

Where did you get that? Gazeta Prawna and Rzeczpospolita (two big national dailies) say that it is very unlikely that Jaroslaw Kaczynski will run for the office. Jaroslaw Kaczynski may be an asshole, but he would have to be a pretty damn cold MF to shrug off the death of his brother and so many friends and coworkers to be able to handle the presidential election. I hate the SO but even I don't think he was built by Cyberdyne Industries.

But the real bombshell is the alternative: according to unofficial info PiS (Jaroslaw Kaczynski's party) is considering backing up professor Michael Kleiber. He was the late president's science advisor and looking at his resume, he is a hardcore scientist:

- head of PAN (Polish Science Academy, the biggest and most renowned national science institute)
- degrees in land engineering and math
- member of the Austrian Science Academy
- editor in chief of "Archives of Computational Methods in Engineering" magazine
- board member of the International Association of Computational Mechanics.
- wrote 7 books and 240 peer reviewed articles

He also has some public duty experience, he was a minister of science and informatisation in 2001-2005, in Leszek Miller's government.

Considering that he was a presidential advisor and that he served in Leszek Miller's government (which stems from left wing social democratic party) makes him an excellent candidate.

Still I don't know anything on his political views, but I like what I've seen so far.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

Didn't the Russian President fly in? Were there yellings of "Oh No!! The Russians are coming! Raise the Alarm!"

[PeZook]

Didn't the Russian President fly in? Were there yellings of "Oh No!! The Russians are coming! Raise the Alarm!"

Yes he did, and no, there were not

His plane probably flew the way transports carrying bodies did: low, below the ash cloud. Since it was a pretty short flight from Moscow, he could've done that with little risk - POTUS, not so much.

Where did you get that? Gazeta Prawna and Rzeczpospolita (two big national dailies) say that it is very unlikely that Jaroslaw Kaczynski will run for the office. Jaroslaw Kaczynski may be an asshole, but he would have to be a pretty damn cold MF to shrug off the death of his brother and so many friends and coworkers to be able to handle the presidential election. I hate the SO but even I don't think he was built by Cyberdyne Industries.

The TVP1 news yesterday. I haven't read today's papers, so it could've changed. And frankly, I think he'd be quite capable of doing that. Apparently, I hate Jaroslaw more than you

But the real bombshell is the alternative: according to unofficial info PiS (Jaroslaw Kaczynski's party) is considering backing up professor Michael Kleiber. He was the late president's science advisor and looking at his resume, he is a hardcore scientist:

Holy shit...depending on his proposed policies, this may just be enough for me to vote for him. Who would've thought, an actually decent candidate from PiS?

[Tolya]

And not only from PiS. Remember, he is well liked in SLD. There is some chatter about SLD backing up Olechowski but some politicians are saying that is absurd. So Kleiber could actually be the first truly universal candidate, backed up both by left and right wing parties.

Komorowski has proven himself to be what he is - a dull governmental drone without any flair and already there are voices of dissatisfaction over his acting presidency. If only they would swap him for Sikorski...

[Thanas]

professor Michael Kleiber. He was the late president's science advisor and looking at his resume, he is a hardcore scientist:

His name sounds Geman. Won't there be a problem like with Tusk and the wehrmacht?

[PeZook]

His name sounds Geman. Won't there be a problem like with Tusk and the wehrmacht?

I don't think so. PiS was the party to pull these kinds of stunts, and (fortunately) all did was piss people off and make them look retarded. If what Tolya says is true that he's well liked by the SLD as well, we could actually see a proper, meritoric campaign.

Of course, I'd rather reserve judgement until I take a look at the man's actual policies. I also have no idea if he's a competent politician - being a scientist is great and all, but a president isn't the same thing as a lab director or even dean of a university.

---------------------

On the catastrophe, I've just read an article by Micheal Fisher, a retired air force pilot, who described in detail what is typically involved in landing an airplane like the Tu-154M, and he had some interesting observations about the procedures involved, which are quite different between Western and Eastern ways of doing it all:

1. It's not really true Smolensk had no ILS system: it certainly had a landing control radar (a thin-beam radar that only monitors the approach vector to the runway), and the crew was talking with the operator. However, Western procedure calls for a "talk-down", where the radar operator issues instruction as a form of monologue, interrupting if he notices the plane isn't following them, while Russians do it differently: the pilot and operator have to acknowledge receipt of each message.

The LCR operator at Smolensk went on the air complaining the Polish pilot did not acknowledge his messages.

2. Altimeters actually measure air pressure, not altitude: so when approaching an airfield, the plane should calibrate its altimeters to local pressure. However, according to Western procedure, you get pressure at sea level in hectopascals, while Russians will give you pressure at ground level in milimeters of mercury. One can see a nice spot for making a rather big error here, especially if the crew was nervous.

3. A technical failure can't be ruled out at this moment, since this far from the runway, the plane should be flying at about 60 meters, not right over the treetops. Nobody yet knows why this happened.

[Vympel]

Shouldn't Polish pilots of a Tu-154M be intimately familiar with Eastern landing procedures? I imagine it would've been the way they do things for about 50 years.

[PeZook]

Shouldn't Polish pilots of a Tu-154M be intimately familiar with Eastern landing procedures? I imagine it would've been the way they do things for about 50 years.

Not really - Cpt. Arkadiusz Protasiuk, the plane's pilot-in-command, was 36 years old, and he graduated from Deblin Flying School in 1997, so Poland was already using Western procedure. Of course, Fisher did indeed write the crew would've been familiar with both sets of procedures. It's just that it's easy to see how they could've made a mistake if they had to use both sets interchangeably, and were (understandably) nervous about the weather. Kaczynski, after all, flew way more often over Western Europe than over Russia.

[PeZook]

GHETTO EDIT: By the way, the archbishop or whoever the fuck he was, while leading the memorial ceremony, said in prime time on national TV and in front of delegates from dozens of countries that Lech Kaczynski put a stop to "decades of institutionalized atheisation".

The concordate between Poland and the Vatican was signed in 1993 by the eeeeeevil leftist government of Hannah Suchocka, and amongst other things, it mandates the polish state will finance religious indoctrination education in schools. There are crosses hanging in all Polish administrative buildings, including schools.A huge radio and TV station run by a certain Redemptorist priest has a concession valid 'till 2018 and never had a problem renewing it.

INSTITUTIONALIZED ATHEISATION!!!

I'd really like to see what the Church would consider "proper religious upbringing of the Polish youth" if they shit their pants over that.

[Tolya]

Polish church is full of crap, wow, who knew?

I would be very happy to hear how the fact that since early 90's Church has been retrieving its estates lost to the communist government fits into this "institutionalized atheisation" of theirs.

Insolent fucktards. Church gets back lots of land worth LOTS of money (and I mean LOTS) which it uses to build new churches or accumulate wealth (but at the same time complaining how poor they are). Tax-free land and property. And the committee that is leading the process is not only biased, but also empowered to take almost everything they can and no one in the local government can object.

Listening to such crap reminds me of the church figures in Assasin Creed I and II. Really.

Proper upbringing of Polish youth? Can you remember Mlodziez Wszechpolska (hard to translate. Something like "Everpolish youth" comes to mind) which basically was a bunch of right winged fundies with close ties to nazi ideology (members were repeatedly photographed hailing the chief and using swastikas during parties)

[Tolya]

Oh, about crosses. There is a cross hanging in the main chamber of the polish parliament. What is funny that there is NO LEGAL BASE for that cross to be there. Some MP's just came in the 90's during the night and hung that piece of scrap on the wall. And hoped that nobody has the audacity to take it off. So for no one did. Can you believe it?

[Tolya]

His name sounds Geman. Won't there be a problem like with Tusk and the wehrmacht?

The general public in Poland is slowly getting over germanophobia I think. There are still idiots who will scream "GERMAN INVASION" in relation to the cases when outcast german citizens try to regain their lost property in polish courts, but hopefully it is slowly dying down. There was this case with Agnes Trawny who regained her house that she lost in 1970's when she moved to Germany. But that was a pristine example of how dumb those people can get - Trawny was a pole who went to Germany in order to find a job and be able to support her family. She still is a polish citizen and her house was taken illegally by the gmina's voivode. Even more ironically, she comes from Mazury - and it is rather difficult to find anyone WITHOUT german roots there.

As a funny side note, there was a European Parliament candidate from Cracow who had a serious dillema because of her name. Her abbreviated name is "Róża Thun", while her full name is "Róża Maria Gräfin von Thun und Hohenstein". I almost imagined that people seeing her name on a voting card would think that they have the opportunity to vote for a Prussian grossgruntbesitzer (landowner) who is standning ready to oppress them. Ironically, Róża Thun was born a pole and her family name is "Wożniakowska". It is difficult to imagine a more polish name other than "Kowalski".

[Broomstick]

On the catastrophe, I've just read an article by Micheal Fisher, a retired air force pilot, who described in detail what is typically involved in landing an airplane like the Tu-154M, and he had some interesting observations about the procedures involved, which are quite different between Western and Eastern ways of doing it all:

1. It's not really true Smolensk had no ILS system: it certainly had a landing control radar (a thin-beam radar that only monitors the approach vector to the runway), and the crew was talking with the operator. However, Western procedure calls for a "talk-down", where the radar operator issues instruction as a form of monologue, interrupting if he notices the plane isn't following them, while Russians do it differently: the pilot and operator have to acknowledge receipt of each message.

There may be some language issues here, but what is described in that paragraph is not what aviators normally call an ILS - it sounds like airport secondary radar of some sort.

It is also standard procedure in the West for pilots to acknowledge ATC transmissions. This all sounds a little odd, but again, there could be some translation issue here.

The LCR operator at Smolensk went on the air complaining the Polish pilot did not acknowledge his messages.

ATC didn't simply say "acknowledge my transmissions"? That's how we usually handle such issues in North America....

2. Altimeters actually measure air pressure, not altitude:

True. (Alright, there are radar altimeters and GPS altitude information, but let's not confuse the issue - when someone says "altimeter" they usually mean the air pressure variety).

so when approaching an airfield, the plane should calibrate its altimeters to local pressure. However, according to Western procedure, you get pressure at sea level in hectopascals, while Russians will give you pressure at ground level in milimeters of mercury. One can see a nice spot for making a rather big error here, especially if the crew was nervous.

That is certainly a possibility. However the hectopascals/millimeters of mercury thing isn't that uncommon a choice - I heard about it in primary flight training way over here in the US (where air pressure is usually give in INCHES of mercury!) You're supposed to check this sort of thing out BEFORE you take off for a foreign destination. It's covered even in primary training because a private pilot's license allows you to fly anywhere in the world civilian aviation is permitted. I would expect pilots at the level we're talking about here to not only be familiar with the various air pressure units, but to have some actual practice in using different ones (even in the US, I have had to used the metric measures as some airports in the US are entirely metric in their information. But I digress...) However, it is a potential source of human error.

3. A technical failure can't be ruled out at this moment, since this far from the runway, the plane should be flying at about 60 meters, not right over the treetops. Nobody yet knows why this happened.

See my post about minimum approaches in bad visibility - MOST of the time the airplane being too low is a pilot busting minimums. Not always, just usually.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

They haven't released transcripts of the recording yet?

[PeZook]

Oh, man, I've set Tolya off

There may be some language issues here, but what is described in that paragraph is not what aviators normally call an ILS - it sounds like airport secondary radar of some sort.

It is also standard procedure in the West for pilots to acknowledge ATC transmissions. This all sounds a little odd, but again, there could be some translation issue here.

Right, Fiszer mentioned that, actually, but the media keep claiming the airfield had no landing aids whatsoever, while it did have a landing control radar - which isn't a popular thing in civilian airports, apparently, but is still used by the military as a backup in case the ILS gets damaged or suffers a malfunction. A civilian airport can just divert its planes, after all, while an airbase will not always have the option.

It is also standard procedure in the West for pilots to acknowledge ATC transmissions. This all sounds a little odd, but again, there could be some translation issue here.

That's the thing, though: he wasn't talking about ATC, he was talking about the landing control radar operator guiding the airplane during the final phase of the landing.

ATC didn't simply say "acknowledge my transmissions"? That's how we usually handle such issues in North America....

I have no idea, it was a single remark that was spliced into a TV program. I'm sure the investigations comittee will interview (or more likely, they already did) the operator in great detail.

That is certainly a possibility. However the hectopascals/millimeters of mercury thing isn't that uncommon a choice - I heard about it in primary flight training way over here in the US (where air pressure is usually give in INCHES of mercury!) You're supposed to check this sort of thing out BEFORE you take off for a foreign destination. It's covered even in primary training because a private pilot's license allows you to fly anywhere in the world civilian aviation is permitted. I would expect pilots at the level we're talking about here to not only be familiar with the various air pressure units, but to have some actual practice in using different ones (even in the US, I have had to used the metric measures as some airports in the US are entirely metric in their information. But I digress...) However, it is a potential source of human error.

You have a good point, and Fiszer said the same thing, that the pilots probably knew both sets of procedures very, very well. If they made an error of this sort, it was probably brought about by other circumstances, as usually happens the case with those disasters - they're never about one error, there's always a string of poor decisions/circumstances and/or technical failures that lead to them.

See my post about minimum approaches in bad visibility - MOST of the time the airplane being too low is a pilot busting minimums. Not always, just usually.

Probably, but they busted them really badly: they hit trees a full kilometer off the runway. I doubt even a cocky overzealous pilot would be that reckless.

Oh, also: there was only one landing attempt. I think the Russians confirmed it yesterday, or the day before, I can't remember.

They haven't released transcripts of the recording yet?

Not yet, they say they're going to do that soon, though. Apparently, parts of the recording are of poor quality and need to be cleaned up before they're transcribed.

[Thanas]

His name sounds Geman. Won't there be a problem like with Tusk and the wehrmacht?

The general public in Poland is slowly getting over germanophobia I think. There are still idiots who will scream "GERMAN INVASION" in relation to the cases when outcast german citizens try to regain their lost property in polish courts, but hopefully it is slowly dying down. There was this case with Agnes Trawny who regained her house that she lost in 1970's when she moved to Germany. But that was a pristine example of how dumb those people can get - Trawny was a pole who went to Germany in order to find a job and be able to support her family. She still is a polish citizen and her house was taken illegally by the gmina's voivode. Even more ironically, she comes from Mazury - and it is rather difficult to find anyone WITHOUT german roots there.

The way I heard it (and having observed this in my own circle of family and friends) what is going on nowadays is that people rather buy the places they want instead of going the way to the courts, because they got repeatedly slapped down in both German and European courts.

As a funny side note, there was a European Parliament candidate from Cracow who had a serious dillema because of her name. Her abbreviated name is "Róża Thun", while her full name is "Róża Maria Gräfin von Thun und Hohenstein". I almost imagined that people seeing her name on a voting card would think that they have the opportunity to vote for a Prussian grossgruntbesitzer (landowner) who is standning ready to oppress them. Ironically, Róża Thun was born a pole and her family name is "Wożniakowska". It is difficult to imagine a more polish name other than "Kowalski".

Did she marry a German noble or how did she get that name? Because I know Hohenstein was a name of a teutonic order castle and Thun is also german nobility.

[Tolya]

Did she marry a German noble or how did she get that name? Because I know Hohenstein was a name of a teutonic order castle and Thun is also german nobility.

Actually she married Franz Graf von Thun und Hohenstein in 1981. But he was Austrian rather than German. And she did eventually did get elected meaning people know better.

[Broomstick]

Right, Fiszer mentioned that, actually, but the media keep claiming the airfield had no landing aids whatsoever, while it did have a landing control radar - which isn't a popular thing in civilian airports, apparently, but is still used by the military as a backup in case the ILS gets damaged or suffers a malfunction. A civilian airport can just divert its planes, after all, while an airbase will not always have the option.

It would be strange for an airport to have JUST an ILS and not other landing aids whatsoever - but I don't expect the media to have any real idea of what a "landing aid" is or how it is used. I don't think I"m familiar with the one mentioned here, and lack of familiarity with equipment certainly can be a factor in accidents.

It is also standard procedure in the West for pilots to acknowledge ATC transmissions. This all sounds a little odd, but again, there could be some translation issue here.

That's the thing, though: he wasn't talking about ATC, he was talking about the landing control radar operator guiding the airplane during the final phase of the landing.

It still seems strange to me that there would be no reply to whoever is talking on the radio - repeating back instructions and acknowledging transmission is entirely routine, not just with ATC but with other aircraft and really anyone with business on aviation radio. We shall have to await the outcome of the investigation, I think. It is possible that just before the crash the pilots became too busy to respond to the radio, as flying is always first priority.

See my post about minimum approaches in bad visibility - MOST of the time the airplane being too low is a pilot busting minimums. Not always, just usually.

Probably, but they busted them really badly: they hit trees a full kilometer off the runway. I doubt even a cocky overzealous pilot would be that reckless.

The accident records disagree with you. I personally knew a pilot who made an error of that magnitude, resulting in the death of himself and two others as well as the loss of the airplane. It can be cockiness, an improperly set altimeter, or both.

Oh, also: there was only one landing attempt. I think the Russians confirmed it yesterday, or the day before, I can't remember.

Hm... that makes me lean more towards "wrong altimeter setting" than cocky pilot... but again, well have to see the outcome of the accident investigation

Remember, on instrument flights you really can't see where you are going. If your instruments aren't properly set or are malfunctioning it can very easily kill you.

They haven't released transcripts of the recording yet?

Not yet, they say they're going to do that soon, though. Apparently, parts of the recording are of poor quality and need to be cleaned up before they're transcribed.

Yes, I'm sure tree branches slicing through a fuselage makes quite a lot of noise....

[PeZook]

It would be strange for an airport to have JUST an ILS and not other landing aids whatsoever - but I don't expect the media to have any real idea of what a "landing aid" is or how it is used. I don't think I"m familiar with the one mentioned here, and lack of familiarity with equipment certainly can be a factor in accidents.

Well, the guy I keep mentioning is a former military pilot, so he's talking based on his experiences as a military pilot. He claimed the landing control radar is an old-ish technology, so maybe civilian airports moved beyond it? Can't say, I'm not a pilot nor an expert. If I have an hour or so of free time I may try to translate his article

It still seems strange to me that there would be no reply to whoever is talking on the radio - repeating back instructions and acknowledging transmission is entirely routine, not just with ATC but with other aircraft and really anyone with business on aviation radio. We shall have to await the outcome of the investigation, I think. It is possible that just before the crash the pilots became too busy to respond to the radio, as flying is always first priority.

Possible. And again, it may be that procedures for civilian and military aviation are slightly different in details like these.

Probably, but they busted them really badly: they hit trees a full kilometer off the runway. I doubt even a cocky overzealous pilot would be that reckless.

The accident records disagree with you. I personally knew a pilot who made an error of that magnitude, resulting in the death of himself and two others as well as the loss of the airplane. It can be cockiness, an improperly set altimeter, or both.

...oh. Then again, these guys should know better, and cpt. Protasiuk did land at that airport before.

You know, there was another retired aviator on the radio today morning and he made a similar observation to you: that there are certain procedures you are supposed to follow when attempting to land in bad weather, and when you can't make it according to procedure, you should divert. Part of the procedure is observing you are at the proper height when at a certain distance from the airport, and when you can't see the runway - abort. He's leaning towards pilot error or an improperly set altimeter (which I guess is the same thing...) though he, too, was careful to reserve that at this moment, a technical malfunction hasn't been ruled out.