Russia claims Poles to blame for Smolensk crash
Source: Agencies |
January 13, 2011, Thursday
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RUSSIAN officials investigating the plane crash that killed Polish President Lech Kaczynski placed the blame squarely on the Poles yesterday, saying the crew was pressured to land in bad weather by an air force commander who they claimed had been drinking.
Kaczynski and 95 others, including his wife, died in April 2010 when their Tu-154 plane crashed while trying to land in Smolensk, Russia. There were no survivors.
Officials of the Interstate Aviation Committee, which investigates crashes in much of the former Soviet Union, said yesterday that the pilots were pressured to land by Poland's air force commander, General Andrzej Blasik, who was in the cockpit. They said he had a blood-alcohol level of about 0.06 percent, enough to impair reasoning.
Blasik's presence in the cockpit "had a psychological influence on the commander's decision to take an unjustified risk by continuing the descent with the overwhelming goal of landing by all means necessary," committee chairwoman Tatiana Anodina said while announcing the results of the investigation.
The report found no fault with Russian air traffic controllers who "gave no permission to land," said Alexei Morozov, the head of the committee's technical commission.
"They gave permission to descend to 100 meters," he said. "The crew should have started a second attempt, but instead continued their unauthorized descent."
Morozov added that a glitch in one of the plane's gauges prompted the crew to think the plane was more than 100 meters above the ground.
The crew of another Polish plane, a Yak-40 that had landed at Smolensk airport shortly before, recommended that the presidential plane attempt a landing, Morozov said.
"The Yak-40's pilots gave a very emotional warning about the bad weather, but suggested that (the second plane) land," Morozov said.
The report is likely to anger Polish officials, who have complained that previous drafts of Russia's report should have questioned whether controllers should have allowed the plane to land in poor visibility. In December, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk accused the Russian investigators of negligence.
Tusk is cutting short a holiday abroad to return to Poland and will not comment until he has read the report, his spokesman Pawel Gras said, according to Poland's TVN24 television channel.
Kaczynski and his delegation were on their way to a ceremony for the victims of the 1940 Katyn massacre, in which 20,000 Polish officers and other prisoners of war were killed by the Soviet secret police.
Efforts to cover up responsibility for the massacre have long been a irritant in relations between Poland and Russia. But in recent years Russia has tried to overcome the tensions by releasing thick dossiers of documents and saying the killings were ordered by Soviet leader Josef Stalin.
Kaczynski and 95 others, including his wife, died in April 2010 when their Tu-154 plane crashed while trying to land in Smolensk, Russia. There were no survivors.
Officials of the Interstate Aviation Committee, which investigates crashes in much of the former Soviet Union, said yesterday that the pilots were pressured to land by Poland's air force commander, General Andrzej Blasik, who was in the cockpit. They said he had a blood-alcohol level of about 0.06 percent, enough to impair reasoning.
Blasik's presence in the cockpit "had a psychological influence on the commander's decision to take an unjustified risk by continuing the descent with the overwhelming goal of landing by all means necessary," committee chairwoman Tatiana Anodina said while announcing the results of the investigation.
The report found no fault with Russian air traffic controllers who "gave no permission to land," said Alexei Morozov, the head of the committee's technical commission.
"They gave permission to descend to 100 meters," he said. "The crew should have started a second attempt, but instead continued their unauthorized descent."
Morozov added that a glitch in one of the plane's gauges prompted the crew to think the plane was more than 100 meters above the ground.
The crew of another Polish plane, a Yak-40 that had landed at Smolensk airport shortly before, recommended that the presidential plane attempt a landing, Morozov said.
"The Yak-40's pilots gave a very emotional warning about the bad weather, but suggested that (the second plane) land," Morozov said.
The report is likely to anger Polish officials, who have complained that previous drafts of Russia's report should have questioned whether controllers should have allowed the plane to land in poor visibility. In December, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk accused the Russian investigators of negligence.
Tusk is cutting short a holiday abroad to return to Poland and will not comment until he has read the report, his spokesman Pawel Gras said, according to Poland's TVN24 television channel.
Kaczynski and his delegation were on their way to a ceremony for the victims of the 1940 Katyn massacre, in which 20,000 Polish officers and other prisoners of war were killed by the Soviet secret police.
Efforts to cover up responsibility for the massacre have long been a irritant in relations between Poland and Russia. But in recent years Russia has tried to overcome the tensions by releasing thick dossiers of documents and saying the killings were ordered by Soviet leader Josef Stalin.
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