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Quote:
People hold candles and flowers in front of the Presidential Palace in Warsaw
Poland suffered its greatest peacetime tragedy yesterday when its president and dozens of other leading figures were killed in a plane crash in Russia after their pilot ignored warnings not to land in thick fog.
President Lech Kaczynski, 60, his wife Maria, an economist, and 95 others died on their way to commemorate the massacre of 22,000 Polish prisoners at Katyn in 1940 by Stalin’s secret police.
Instead of diverting, as advised, the pilot of the 20- year-old plane tried and failed to land at least once, before clipping trees and plunging into a forest.
Air traffic controllers watched their screens with growing unease as the Soviet-era Tupolev descended into the fog that hung like a shroud over the military airfield at Smolensk in western Russia.
The controllers had already issued several warnings not to attempt a landing because of the danger posed by visibility close to zero. They wanted the plane to divert to Moscow or Minsk, the Belarus capital.
For reasons as yet unknown, the plane carrying a Polish presidential delegation to commemorate the Soviet massacre of Polish officers in the Katyn forest seven decades ago came in to land regardless.
“At a distance of 2.5km [1.5 miles] the head of air traffic control ascertained that the crew had increased the speed of the descent,” said Alexander Alyoshin, of the Russian air force.
“The head of the air traffic control group gave a command to the crew to put the aircraft into the horizontal position and when the crew did not implement this order, several times gave orders to divert to an alternative airport.
“Despite this, the crew continued the descent. Unfortunately this ended in tragedy.”
President Lech Kaczynski, 60, who with his identical brother Jaroslaw, had dominated conservative politics in Poland for 20 years since the downfall of communism, was killed with his wife, Maria, 66, an economist, and 95 other people, including some of the country’s top military and civilian leaders, as the plane plunged into the forest about 300 yards short of the runway.
Television images showed pieces of smouldering wreckage scattered over a wide area among the trees. A tail fin with the Polish red and white colours stuck up from the debris. There were no survivors.
Two “black boxes” — the plane’s cockpit flight recorders — were recovered from the wreckage. According to Russian investigators, a preliminary check confirmed that the pilot had defied the control tower. The recorders may hold the answer as to why.
Source <-- click for full article
Poland suffered its greatest peacetime tragedy yesterday when its president and dozens of other leading figures were killed in a plane crash in Russia after their pilot ignored warnings not to land in thick fog.
President Lech Kaczynski, 60, his wife Maria, an economist, and 95 others died on their way to commemorate the massacre of 22,000 Polish prisoners at Katyn in 1940 by Stalin’s secret police.
Instead of diverting, as advised, the pilot of the 20- year-old plane tried and failed to land at least once, before clipping trees and plunging into a forest.
Air traffic controllers watched their screens with growing unease as the Soviet-era Tupolev descended into the fog that hung like a shroud over the military airfield at Smolensk in western Russia.
The controllers had already issued several warnings not to attempt a landing because of the danger posed by visibility close to zero. They wanted the plane to divert to Moscow or Minsk, the Belarus capital.
For reasons as yet unknown, the plane carrying a Polish presidential delegation to commemorate the Soviet massacre of Polish officers in the Katyn forest seven decades ago came in to land regardless.
“At a distance of 2.5km [1.5 miles] the head of air traffic control ascertained that the crew had increased the speed of the descent,” said Alexander Alyoshin, of the Russian air force.
“The head of the air traffic control group gave a command to the crew to put the aircraft into the horizontal position and when the crew did not implement this order, several times gave orders to divert to an alternative airport.
“Despite this, the crew continued the descent. Unfortunately this ended in tragedy.”
President Lech Kaczynski, 60, who with his identical brother Jaroslaw, had dominated conservative politics in Poland for 20 years since the downfall of communism, was killed with his wife, Maria, 66, an economist, and 95 other people, including some of the country’s top military and civilian leaders, as the plane plunged into the forest about 300 yards short of the runway.
Television images showed pieces of smouldering wreckage scattered over a wide area among the trees. A tail fin with the Polish red and white colours stuck up from the debris. There were no survivors.
Two “black boxes” — the plane’s cockpit flight recorders — were recovered from the wreckage. According to Russian investigators, a preliminary check confirmed that the pilot had defied the control tower. The recorders may hold the answer as to why.
Source <-- click for full article
