Investigators Say No Problems With Polish Plane

April 12th, 2010 (6) Posted By Pat Dollard.

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WARSAW, Poland (AP) — Russian investigators say readings from flight recorders indicate that there were no technical problems with Polish President Lech Kaczynski’s Soviet-made plane that crashed, killing him and 95 other people.

In footage broadcast on Poland’s TVN24 Monday, the investigators told Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin the pilot was warned of bad weather over the airport in Smolensk, western Russia, before the plane crashed while approaching the airport on Saturday.

Kaczynski’s body returned to Warsaw on Sunday. Forensic experts and families are working to identify other bodies — including the first lady’s — and say DNA tests will be necessary in many cases.

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  • Xcrypto

    Smells like KGB. Russia still not happy with the “Break-up”. De-tune ILS just a few degrees, and aircraft goes into a hill. Same thing with Ron Brown.

    • lastconservativeblackmanonearth

      ya gotta wait for the investigation to be completed …

      now, I have no idea as to the training or flight procedures for that Polish carrier, but even an inexpensive hand-held aviation GPS would have exposed to the crew any discrepancies between ILS glide angle (which is usually 3 degrees), and terra firma.

      better yet: all any flight crew has to do is divide the aircraft’s groundspeed on final (~140 knots) in half to get an acceptable descent rate for the approach to landing (in this case, ~700 feet per minute).

      … whatever … rest in peace, all …

    • Xcrypto

      Gosh.. a Russian investigation on Russian soil… wonder how that’s going to come out?

    • Xcrypto

      The airfield had no instrument landing system? Strange for an airfield that was a military airbase.

    • Giorgi

      well well, some russian channel reported “accidentally” that since the airport was put out of commission last year, russian authorities have provided “mobile ground conrol, radar, and guidance equipement”. i wonder, if u misplace the radio-beacon by several dozen meters, will that affect the approach angles. the plane is said to have crashed into a 9meter tall tree before its eventual crash 1+ km from the runway. so plane was being guided flying at 30ft alt less than a mile from the runway. is that normal? and contradicting the initial report, it was the planes first try in approaching the runway, not a 4 or 5th run as russian media claims. so my question – can the missplacement (accidental or premeditated) of the radio-beacon affect planes approach angles, speed, altitude, direction? need ur proffessional opionion.

  • lastconservativeblackmanonearth

    Just what da heck is “bad weather”?

    For the record: if a pilot can see between 1800 and 2400 feet down the runway (on an ILS), he’s landing.

    The only other ‘bad weather’ scenarios that would absolutely cause a pilot to reject a landing would be a thunderstorm, or severe icing.