We FReepers today mourn the untimely and tragic death of Poland's great leader, His Excellency Lech Kaczynski, President of the Republic of Poland.
Posted on 04/10/2010 8:47:28 PM PDT by myknowledge
Poland has been plunged into mourning by the deaths of President Lech Kaczynski and dozens of political and military leaders in a plane crash.
The jet crashed as it attempted to land at Smolensk air base in Russia in thick fog, killing all 97 people on board.
Russian officials have said the pilots ignored warnings from air traffic control to divert to another airport.
A week of mourning has been called in Poland where a two-minute silence will be held at noon (1000 GMT) on Sunday.
Russia has also declared Monday a day of mourning for the victims, whose remains have been flown to morgues in Moscow.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.bbc.co.uk ...
We FReepers today mourn the untimely and tragic death of Poland's great leader, His Excellency Lech Kaczynski, President of the Republic of Poland.
Ping...
Prayers for the families of all who perished. May G-d be with them as they mourn. Prayers for the people of Poland.
What other government has ever sent its president to a foreign country on the same plane as dozens of its other high muckety mucks? I know that the Polish people take unfair raps in popular humor about not being smart, but this actually wasn’t smart.
R.I.P. all the Poles who died in that crash.
To that, I can say, "Hindsight is 20/20."
What bothers me even more is that they let the Russians perform the maintenance on the plane. That just makes no sense. There are some things that should never be outsourced.
It was a Russian built plane, so fairly easy to see why maintenance was done by Russia. But hey, Poland is not the Worlds poorest country! Could they not have bought their president an Air Force one? Did they have to use a 30 year old Russian Tu?
Yeah — or something like this couldn’t they have chartered a Boeing or Airbus? Along with an American pilot?
FOR something like this...
Answer: All of them were government, diplomatic and military official figures. They were all VIPs.
Its a 20 year old plane, just as old as our Air Force One.
Didn’t Poland discover a big find of crude oil recently?
That would almost date back to Soviet times. This sounds like trouble waiting to happen.
“Yeah — or something like this couldn’t they have chartered a Boeing or Airbus? Along with an American pilot?”
I do not know of any plane that can land in trees.
This was nothing but pilot error and bad judgement.
I haven’t seen any evidence of equipment failure. To me it looks like poor conditions, pressure on the pilot to get the passengers there on time for the event(especially after having gotten in trouble once before for not wanting to land elsewhere) and pilot error during final approach. Same thing probably could have happened with a brand new Boeing aircraft.
They’re talking about a fuel dump, which is a desperation move hinting at some kind of mechanical trouble, because that makes diverting impossible. Or else the pilot was high on dope. Better craft, better pilot, would have avoided the trouble leading up to the situation of trying to land in trees.
The pilot got in trouble before for not wanting to divert. So what does he do... refuses to divert, again.
It doesn't matter now. Poland's leaders and a goodly portion of their government are dead. We stand in solidarity with this nation in mourning in their hour of grief.
Or simply to reduce landing weight and allow for a slower approach.
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And throws away the option to divert
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