Posted on 04/15/2010 10:57:55 PM PDT by ketelone
WARSAW: Investigators blamed pilot error on Thursday for a crash that killed Poland's president, as harrowing details emerged of how the crew knew they were doomed after hitting trees while trying to land in Russia.
As Poland's national unity fractured over plans to bury president Lech Kaczynski in a castle alongside kings and heroes, officials released the first results from analysis of the plane's black box flight recorders.
"The crew was aware of the inevitability of the coming catastrophe, if only due to the plane shaking after the wings hit the trees -- which we are certain happened," Poland's chief prosecutor Andrzej Seremet told commercial radio.
Colonel Zbigniew Rzepa, a Polish military prosecutor, said the pilots of the Russian-made jet were aware of the imminent crash as the last seconds of the voice recordings "were dramatic", but did not elaborate.
But Russian investigators found no evidence that "any of the high-ranking passengers forced the pilots to land in Smolensk", Russia's Interfax news agency quoted a source close to the investigation as saying.
The Polish presidential Tupolev Tu-154 crashed in thick fog Saturday near the western Russian city while taking a delegation to a memorial service for a World War II massacre.
All 96 people on board, many of them senior Polish military and political figures, were killed.
Officials said Thursday that a "special security procedure" was being implemented for the arrival of US President Barack Obama and other foreign leaders for the funeral in Krakow, with around 80 planes set to land there Sunday morning.
With a cloud of ash spreading across northern Europe from an Icelandic volcano, Poland closed its airspace in the north of the country on Thursday until further notice, but a White House spokesman said that Obama was keeping his plans to fly.
Protests have erupted over the choice of Krakow's historic Wawel castle, the resting place of Poland's past kings, a saint and national heroes, for the burial of the president and his wife Maria.
Hundreds of people rallied in Warsaw, Krakow, the Baltic port of Gdansk and Poznan in the west on Wednesday, while more than 42,000 people have joined a Facebook campaign against the decision.
The hierarchy of Poland's powerful Roman Catholic urged critics to calm down in the dispute.
"We must respect the decision," Bishop Stanislaw Budzik, secretary-general of the Polish Bishops' Conference, was quoted as saying by Poland's PAP news agency.
"The intention is to commemorate all victims of a disaster unprecedented in Polish history," Budzik said.
As debate raged over Kaczynski's burial site, questions also mounted over the cause of the crash.
Russian investigators said Thursday that initial findings from the jet's data and flight voice recorders said the crew may not have been aware of the particularities of the plane when they repeatedly tried to land.
"An analysis of the evidence, including the first results from the decoding of the black boxes, shows that an error in piloting led to the disaster," the Interfax news agency quoted a source close to the investigation as saying.
The official said it appeared that the plane tried to land by levelling out its oblique descent approach to a horizontal angle in a bid to compensate for the bad weather.
But the source said a "particularity of the plane is that if its speed of descent is more that six metres per second, when the plane equalized and goes into a horizontal flight it loses altitude," the source said.
Speculation that the pilots were under pressure has centred on a spat in 2008, when Kaczynski tried and failed to order a pilot to land in Tbilisi while on a show of support for Georgia during its brief war with Russia.
On Saturday, Kaczynski's delegation was headed to a ceremony marking the 70th anniversary of the Katyn massacre, when thousands of Polish officers were slaughtered by the Soviet secret police in 1940.
Thousands of people queued for a third day Thursday to pay their respects to the conservative, nationalist Kaczynski and his wife, whose bodies are lying in state at the presidential palace in Warsaw.
An early presidential election is expected on June 20.
The bodies of 34 more crash victims were flown home to Poland Thursday.
I’m told that Iceland can be very scenic..
That’s not a stretch, what with KGB Putin and the Obamanation..
Except the Mafia is more sincere.
I can never understand the news reporting what the government releases and then later acting like they never said it . We can trust nothing the news or government says in this country , let alone in Russia .
I too read about the fuel dumping . If they were dumping fuel wouldn't they have informed approach control about it ? If they were not dumping fuel , who in the hell made that story up and for what reason ?
From the article
The official said it appeared that the plane tried to land by levelling out its oblique descent approach to a horizontal angle in a bid to compensate for the bad weather.
This is the kind of desperate stunt pilots who are not instrument rated have been known to try . These pilots had to be the Polish equivelent of our Air Force One crews . No way can I believe they would fly that thing into the ground like a low time doctor or lawyer in his Bonanza or Mooney . We all have known such tragedies in our communities if not our families .If our Air Force One crew said they tried to land but must proceed to an alternate and President Obama ordered them to land anyway , things might get interesting , but no effing way will I believe they would fly their ship into the ground trying for visual . This is terrible and I fear we will never learn the truth . This is so weird , I don't want our people going over there , even for the funeral . Not even Joe Biden .
Highly unlikely that the pilots would not know of this "stall" characteristic.I am pinging one. Comments F15Eagle?
yeah that's a pretty good clue things are not good
Well, I can see why they asked for the cellphones and cameras. They didnt want people spreading unseemly photos of a dead president. Dyou know what the tabloid press would pay for that sort of trash journalism?
Why would the Russians care? They are savages.
Maybe Ron Brown's flight path?
How many Russians have you personally met? What do you know of the Russian culture?
The above statement is pure bigotry.
Something about the plane off course reminds one
of ... the murder of Sec. Brown in the Clinton Administration.
I was going to copy and paste the same phrase. I’m thinking WTF?
Extreme fish smell emanating from this whole thing.
And possibly globalist elite complicity in Kaczynski’s death. If so, we’re treating this as an assassination.
Yeah, once your wings hit the treeline, you’re pretty much a goner. /s
was being implemented for the arrival of US President Barack Obama................................................ Ha, another country to be visited by the Obama entourage. More photo opportunities too.
I was referring to the Russian govt. Who was saying no pictures? Russian govt.
100% feel the same way.
FSB/KGB Putin = Russian mafia
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