Polish president dies in plane crash

Andre

This is a very common dillemma. When I was asked to rewrite our air force rules book, this was by far the biggest PITA bleeb. Army generals want to order the aircraft captain to go where they want to go. One of the rules that is written in blood (of many and counting) is that the captain of the aircraft decides what is safe and what is not safe and nobody shall ever challenge that. Not even your favorite local god.

There should have been no stress on this captain for his carreer for whatever he was going to decide.

And remember: a superior pilot uses his superior judgement to avoid situations that require his superior skills.

dlgoff

I don't understand why, even in small planes, you wouldn't go the cost for a Radar Altimeter.

Borek

They had the radar altimeter, but they were not aware of the way the land is formed on the approach. There is a wide and shallow valley there. So while the terrain around the airfield is generally flat, when you are approaching it raises much faster than expected. That means barometric altimeter was giving better information.

I don't remember report details now and I don't plan on rereading it, but this slope was one of their problems - I think the second pilot was reading indications of the radar altimeter, which gave them feeling of false safety, as they thought they were tens of meters higher than they were in reality. Once the land raised they got very low very fast and the situation got critical immediately.

dlgoff

I guess I was somehow thinking the RA values in the report was from a ground based measurement.

Borek

In Poland today National Geographic is going to air "Death of the President" for the first time. This is part of their Mayday series.

But I won't be able to see it.