Smolensk isn't metropolitan area airport - I heard that they have lowest possible security rating for airports entitled to handle this kind of aircrafts. It is not absolutely safe even without fog. Pilot should fly away after second attempt - that's the rule. It is his fault, but remember that president Kaczyński has some not nice history about "who makes decission". Just imagine - It's president.

FonzeXD

United States220 Posts

April 10 2010 15:00 GMT

#144

Poland lost all of its important people..

Sad day, but not for Germans!

Corvi

Germany1406 Posts

April 10 2010 15:01 GMT

#145

On April 11 2010 00:00 FonzeXD wrote:
Poland lost all of its important people..

Sad day, but not for Germans!

retarded?

/edit
i normally dont make these kind of posts, but this is mindblowingly stupid and offending.

Deimos0

Poland277 Posts

April 10 2010 15:02 GMT

#146

People in Poland frowned upon plans to buy new planes for our government, so every government delayed it. It's shame that only after such disaster society realized that some expenses are necessary.

snotboogie

Australia3550 Posts

April 10 2010 15:02 GMT

#147

Am I the only one thinking assassination?

Itachii

Poland12466 Posts

April 10 2010 15:08 GMT

#148

On April 11 2010 00:02 snotboogie wrote:
Am I the only one thinking assassination?

indeed, 70 years ago, thats why they were going there http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katyn_massacre

but not now

RoosterSamurai

Japan2108 Posts

April 10 2010 15:08 GMT

#149

I saw this on the yahoo! news. That is a really terrible thing to happen. =(

Usul

Germany150 Posts

April 10 2010 15:10 GMT

#150

On April 11 2010 00:00 FonzeXD wrote:
Poland lost all of its important people..

Sad day, but not for Germans!

Wow, you're an idiot!

On April 11 2010 00:02 snotboogie wrote:
Am I the only one thinking assassination?

I hope so. So far the majority seems to be sensible and doesn't fall for conspiracy theories.

Random()

Kyrgyz Republic1462 Posts

April 10 2010 15:11 GMT

#151

The Tu-154 is a good plane, although statistically it doesn't have the best safety record, very few of them were lost due to technical problems. I guess this one neither

CruiseR

Poland4014 Posts

April 10 2010 15:13 GMT

#152

Biggest political catastrophy of recent (if not all?) times.

it's indeed a "cursed" place. The elite was murdered there few decades ago, and now, again, the elite dies just few kilometers from Katyn.

And the final decision about landing or not is always in the hands of pilots crew.

JWD

United States12607 Posts

April 10 2010 15:18 GMT

#153

Poland is a great and beautiful country, this is a horrible tragedy.

Slaughter

United States20254 Posts

April 10 2010 15:20 GMT

#154

Wow, horrible tragedy. Thoughts go out to the families and the country.

GoShox

United States1843 Posts

April 10 2010 15:33 GMT

#155

Oh no...

stormssc

Poland125 Posts

April 10 2010 15:38 GMT

#156

On April 10 2010 23:52 Caphe wrote:
But, how can Poland still use the Tu-154? Even Vietnam ditched these planes a decade ago.

Plane that crashed today was put into maintenance very recently, and it did get upgraded etc. Maintenance cost was pretty big, as far as I remember. Other Polish delegation did use this plane a couple of days ago, and it was 100% operational. I do not think the crash was caused by plane's bad technical condition.

Bill307

Canada9103 Posts

April 10 2010 15:41 GMT

#157

Firstly, my condolences to everyone who is going to suffer as a result of this tragedy.

Now, to summarize the posts about the causes of this disaster:

- Putting many important figures on a single plane.
- Choosing to land at an unsafe airport despite recommendations to land elsewhere.
- Attempting to land in extremely unsafe weather conditions.
- Attempting to land 4 times instead of backing off after 2 attempts -- the standard procedure.

If you ask me, this was not an accident, but a tragic case of human negligence. It is not clear who is to blame (although the pilots must share some of it), but multiple people should have made decisions that would have avoided this disaster.

The flight recorders should tell us more.

7mk

Germany10157 Posts

April 10 2010 15:46 GMT

#158

On April 10 2010 23:33 Itachii wrote:
" scenario above with our own president forcing pilot to land despite the extremely bad conditions is... possible. We had a similar story in summer '08, when pilot of goverment's plane decided not to land in Asia and changed their route. Our president (Kaczynski) was extremely angry and was trying to punish pilot and take his pilot licence after the trip (can't find the exact source though). "

no sorry, this is just bullshit.do you seriously think that he would actually force the pilot to change his route/tell him where and when to land? comon sense dude, the guy/s piloting were in charge and if you wanna blame someone for bad decisions, its the pilot and people arround him, not president

Yeah theoretically he should have done that, but what do you think how many pilots will, if the president curses at you and says that he'll make sure youre gonna be fired unless you freakin land there, how many will say "I guess that's something I'll just have to accept" and not do what the president says?
It's what he should have done and he's to blame for that but it doesnt take away any blame from the president himself,if he wasn't such an idiot none of this would have happened.

I'm sorry for talking so much about something that is purely speculation but it's already happened in 08, I dont see why this shouldnt have been the case here either (plz dont tell me I therefore show a lack of common sense) and just the thought of it makes me fucking angry.

Caphe

Vietnam10817 Posts

April 10 2010 15:48 GMT

#159

On April 11 2010 00:38 stormssc wrote:

Show nested quote +

Yep, I did some research and I was wrong. Seems that it is a solid plane but just too much of bad luck. Most of its crash has nothing to do with technical, they all were either bad weather or pilot's mistake.