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This is the story of the smolensk air diaster. If youve been a long time viewer of the channel then youll be like wait youve done this video before, why are you doing it again. Yeah youre right i have but that was the russian version of events. You see, this crash is controversial to this day. The Russians and the Polish still can't agree on what happened to the Polish presidential plane so I think that we should listen to what Poland has to say on this whole matter. Theres just so much noise out there even the official reports from both countries feel like theyre pushing their own version of events. Therefore I think its important to look at the issue from both sides and that way you can make the choice for yourself as to what really happened
On the 9th of march 2010 the polish president, Lech Kaczyński was on his way to smolensk in russia. For the commemoration of the katyn masscare. This flight would be performed by the TU154 of the polish air force.Prep for this tri had begun a month in advance the embassy of poland in russia was abuzz with activity as they sorted out the logistics of the mission. Having a russian speaking crew would make the trip a lot easier as the russian controllers were more comfortable with russian over english. These are the sorts of things that were discussed. With the prep done the plane took off at 5:27 am with 96 people onboard. As the jet turned towards russia they climbed to their cruising altitude of 33000 feet. As they were passing through belarusian airspace they were in contact with minsk control and they got the first taste of the weather that was waiting for them at Smolensk. “Polish Air Force one zero
one, for information, at zero six one one SMOLENSK visibility: four zero zero meters, fog”. It was foggy at a small runway in russia. It wasn't the best of conditions but it also wasn't the worst. As they got closer they kept getting more updates “Papa Lima Foxtrot one two zero one, KORSAZ, fog, visibility four hundred meters” By the way KORSAZ is the designator for the smolensk airport. At this time the pilots were in contact with the pilot of a yak 40 that had landed an hour before them and he was relaying the weather that he experienced to the pilots of the presidential plane. He did not have good news, the visibility was about 400 meters but the ceiling was low at 50 metres it was so bad that an IL76 after the YAK 40 had to go around twice. Since this was a presidential plane the captain couldnt just be like hey this is bad lets go somewhere else he passed that information onto the diplomatic director. He let the director know that the weather was bad and that they probably would not be able to make a landing and that theyd try but a landing was not guaranteed. “Well, then, we have a problem We could hold for about half an hour and then go to an alternate airport” the director then took that information to the president to see what he said. But even as the plane started its descent into smolensk, the president had not made a decision yet. As they were downind to the base leg the controller asked the crew if they had ever landed at smolensk. The captain had landed in smolensk before just days ago. But as the plane made the turn to the base leg the controller warned the crew that they should be ready to go around when they hit 100 meters as the weather was quite bad. As the plane lined up with the final the controller started giving the crew their positon with respect to the glidepath. But things were not going well for the crew of flight 101, when they were 8.3 kilometers away from the runway the tu 154 was 130 metres above the glideslope and the plane was slightly climbing. As the flight progressed the controller kept guiding the plane down. But in the cockpit the TAWS engaged and the terrain ahead warning lit up in the cockpit. But the crew kept going when they were 4.6 kilometers from the runway they were still having problems. The plane was a bit too high and they were to the left of the runway. That didnt really change as they got closer and closer to the runway. Except for one tiny thing. The plane started to slip below the glideslope. The pilots knew that somet