Russia blames Poles for Presidential air crash

A report just released on Wednesday, January 12, 2011 by the Interstate Aviation Committee (IAC), the Russian equivalent of the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), into the crash of a Tupolev Tu-154M Soviet era trijet airliner belonging to the Polish Air Force, which killed all 89 passengers and 7 crew members, including Polish President Lech Kaczynski, his wife, and top government officials on Saturday morning, April 10, 2010 at 10:56 a.m. local time, places fault for the accident on pilot error and other contributing factors.

According to the Associated Press, Russian officials investigating the plane crash placed the blame squarely on the Poles, saying the crew was pressured to land in bad weather by a Polish Air Force commander who had been drinking.

The findings have raised a fire storm of controversy, and opened old wounds dating back over 70 years to World War II, and the 1940 Katyn forest massacre, during which members of the NKVD, or Soviet Secret Police, under orders of their director, Lavrentiy Pavlovich Beria, with the approval of Joseph Stalin and the entire Soviet Politburo, had engaged in the mass murder of 20,000 Polish prisoners of war, mostly military officers, intellectuals, police officers, and other officials of the government.

The village of Katyn is 12 miles west of Smolensk, where those aboard the Tupolev perished. These events of World War II have been a painful memory to Poles, and the long process of healing relations with Russia, as well as honoring the memories of those who were slaughtered, were part of President Kaczynski's reasons for making the trip, which led to his own tragic and ironic death.

Poland has been critical of the report, and characterized it as "biased and lacking evidence." However, the negative feelings are not universal. Former Polish President Lech Walesa believes Russia deserves recognition and thanks and not, as he puts it, "sputtering" over power in the investigations.

"If we had been any harsher in regard to Russia, then we wouldn't have gotten anything. The disaster happened in their country and they can do whatever they like," Walesa told Polish journalists in an interview on Saturday, January 15, 2011, sadly adding "This is difficult for me to say but at the present moment, they, the Russian authorities, in a rare case acted well."

The 184 page English translation of the final report by the IAC can be found at this link. The report finds several factors contributing to the crash. Quoting from the English translation, "According to the conclusion made by the pilot-experts and aviation psychologists, the presence of the Commander-in-Chief of the Polish Air Force in the cockpit until the collision exposed psychological pressure on the PIC's decision to continue descent in the conditions of unjustified risk with a dominating aim of landing at any means."

The various contributing factors included [1] low experience by the pilot in command (PIC) in conducting non precision approaches; [2] long debate and discussion over an alternate airport, which increased the psychological stress of the crew and made the PIC experience psychological clash of motives; [3] lack of compliance to the Standard Operating Procedures (SOP) and lack of Crew Resource Management (CRM) by the flight crew; [4] allowing autopilot and auto throttle down to altitudes lower than minimum descent altitude, not in compliance with flight crew operations manual (FCOM) provisions; [5] late start of final descent which resulted in increased vertical speed of descent the crew had to maintain.

In summarizing their finding, the IAC states, "The systematic causes of the accident involving the Tu-154M, tail number 101, aircraft of the Republic of Poland were significant shortcomings in the organization of flight operations, flight crew preparation, and arrangement of the VIP flight in the special air regiment."

An Associated Press dispatch from Moscow states, "In Poland, the report met with accusations that it is unbalanced and failed to acknowledged any possible Russian mistakes. The issue of responsibility has a strong emotional component in Poland, where suspicions of Russia remain strong due to Moscow's domination of Poland in communist times."

"Polish Interior Minister Jerzy Miller, who is heading a separate Polish investigation, did not contest the findings, but underlined that he believes both Polish and Russian aviation officials were "unprepared" for ensuring a safe landing."

Both sides agree that the decision to land in heavy fog at an airport with only basic navigation equipment was the main reason for the crash. However, Polish authorities were disappointed that the accident investigation report did not place any blame on Russian air traffic controllers or technical conditions at Smolensk North Airport, which might also have contributed to the accident.

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