News Polish president dies in plane crash

[Borg]

Very sad news. Our hearts go out to your countrymen, Borek.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100410/ap_on_re_eu/eu_russia_plane_crash" .

 

[Borek]

Would you believe it - I have learned about his death from PF :shock:

 

[Borek]

List of casualties is incredible - many high officials. Really, next months in Poland will be difficult.

 

[Kajahtava]

I some times wonder of things like this if I'm the only person who isn't fazed by it, or the only person who admits it.

Most of the time when people react shocked to these kind of things, they seem to have forgotten it in fifteen minutes, I'm willing to admit that it doesn't affect me in the slightest.

Probably financially cumbersome for Poland and all though, the date was also kind of ironic I guess...

 

[hypatia]

A very grim day for the country and people of Poland. It is a incredible, horrible accident, with so many people effected.

Know that many people are thinking of your countrymen, and share the sadness.

 

[Andre]

That's very sad news indeed. I hope Poland recovers quickly.

By the way, the setting, landing in fog, is one of the more accident prone situations. Well don't worry, flying is still very safe, but if it goes wrong occasionally, it's more often during a landing in fog.

 

[MotoH]

Rip.
In today's crashed of Tu-154 their lifes has lost:
Gen. Franciszek GĄGOR - - Chief of General Staff of Polish Army

Operational commander of of Polish Army Gen. broni Bronisław KWIATKOWSKI
[PLAIN]http://www.bbn.gov.pl/dokumenty/zalaczniki/1-1785_g.jpg

Commander of Air Force Gen. broni pil. Andrzej BŁASIK
[URL]http://pliki.lotniczapolska.pl/jpg/foto%207-01.jpg[/URL]

Commander of Land Forces Gen. dyw. Tadeusz BUK

Commander of Special Forces Gen. dyw. Włodzimierz POTASIŃSKI
[PLAIN]http://www.wojskaspecjalne.mil.pl/modules/page/upload/graphic/images/genPotasinskiyaka.jpg

Commander of Navy Wiceadmirał Andrzej KARWETA

Commander of garrison Warsaw Gen. bryg. Kazimierz GILARSKI
[URL]http://www.mieczyslawgolba.pl/newsfoto/dg_2009_04_17_12_37_39/p1060868.jpg[/URL]
Many of them had combat experience. It will be hard goal for Polish Army to replace those man.

 

[arildno]

My condolences to all Polish on this sad ay.

 

[Oloria]

Very sad.
Transcience of human life... It's something to think about.
Do the most important for us right now, cause in a while there could not be the time...

 

[Lacy33]

Thank you for your post MotoH.
Much sadness now.
Perhaps comfort in the days to come. Not now.

 

[Borek]

MotoH post may suggest only military personnel was lost, but that's not the case. Plenty of civillian officials (ministers, senators, parlament members, president of NBP - national bank) on board as well.

 

[arildno]

I also find tragic the deaths of the as yet unnamed relatives of the Polish officers killed in the Katyn massacre who were in that plane, and for whom the intended visit had a deeper personal significance than it had for the professional Polish elite.

They came to commemorate their dead, and bring closure to a 70-year old wound; now, they only met their own deaths instead.

 

[Lacy33]

MotoH post may suggest only military personnel was lost, but that's not the case. Plenty of civillian officials (ministers, senators, parlament members, president of NBP - national bank) on board as well.

Borek, we know. this is such a loss. any loss of life is sad, but this is tragic of course for your country. we are seeing it on TV here. we are looking for our neighbor an older man who has no one here. his english is hard to understand but we think he will understand a hug.

sorry again for your loss.

 

[turbo]

MotoH post may suggest only military personnel was lost, but that's not the case. Plenty of civillian officials (ministers, senators, parlament members, president of NBP - national bank) on board as well.

Sad. So many eggs in that one "basket". The Polish government is going to be heavily unsettled, if not decapitated. Best wishes for stability and peace.

 

[Andre]

Sad. So many eggs in that one "basket". The Polish government is going to be heavily unsettled, if not decapitated. Best wishes for stability and peace.

Absolutely. I seem to remember that we have official rules for not combining too many top leaders in a single means of transportation. But do we adhere to them?

 

[Jonathan Scott]

BBC news report suggests that conditions were so foggy that flight was supposed to have been diverted to another airport but pilots chose to try to land there anyway (presumably in order not to disrupt the scheduled arrangements for such important people).

 

[Borek]

Kotyn massacre

It is Katyń. Don't worry too much about ń, replacing it will n is OK.

Sad. So many eggs in that one "basket". The Polish government is going to be heavily unsettled, if not decapitated. Best wishes for stability and peace.

Actually seems to me like it is going to be easier than I thought at first. In Poland President is not that important - government is headed by Prime Minister and he has most of the executive authority. Ministers that died were from presidents team - so while technically they are called ministers they are not directly involved in running the country. Government as such is intact.

Many valuable people perished, that is sad. There are several positions that have to be filled, but most of them are of low importance for running the country. It is process of filling the vacancies that I am afraid of, as it will mean political fights and it never helps.

And while we have lost highest ranking officers of the army, army structure and rules make it hard to decapitate.

Edit: I am far from saying that nothing serious happened, but I can easily imagine much worse scenario.

 

[russ_watters]

BBC news report suggests that conditions were so foggy that flight was supposed to have been diverted to another airport but pilots chose to try to land there anyway (presumably in order not to disrupt the scheduled arrangements for such important people).

Unfortuntately, that's not an uncommon cause for crashes of planes with high level people in them. People should listen to their pilots/ATC and follow the rules. They are there for a reason.

 

[lisab]

Wow, this is terrible and shocking . My condolences to Borek and Marzena, and all our Polish members.

 

[waht]

This is very sad news. My condolences go out to the whole Polish nation.

 

[Lisa!]

My condolences to Borek , Marzena and all other polish PFers!PS : Was it a topolov? Last year so many topolov crashes happened in my country . The way that people are sort of afraid of traveling with topolov.

 

[Evo]

Very tragic.

 

[Astronuc]

My condolences to the Polish people and the families of those killed.

It was a Tupolev Tu-154, but the accident is apparently due to pilot error. The pilot disregarded instructions to fly to another airfield.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/eu_russia_plane_crash

 

[Andre]

BBC news report suggests that conditions were so foggy that flight was supposed to have been diverted to another airport but pilots chose to try to land there anyway (presumably in order not to disrupt the scheduled arrangements for such important people).

That reminds me of a discussion I had when overhauling/rewriting the Air Force Main Flight Orders about command and control of the aircraft versus flying safety. This was a difficult discussion. An army commander assumed that whenever he had aircraft assigned to him that the pilot in command was to obey his orders as in: "I order you to land at that airport now" - (because maybe otherwise some extremely important issue would be jeopardized). It was tough to explain that at some point the flight safety risk was to big to obey such an order, due to weather conditions below below landing mimimums for instance. So things like that should remain a pilot decision and cannot be overruled by outranking autorities.

So who knows what has happened in that aircraft in terms of decision making?

 

[Astronuc]

So who knows what has happened in that aircraft in terms of decision making?

Perhaps the 'cockpit voice recorder' will provide information - assuming that the particular plane was so equipped.

 

[Borek]

So who knows what has happened in that aircraft in terms of decision making?

Two years ago there was a discussion in Poland on exactly the same problem, although it was not about weather. In August 2008 our President flew to Tbilisi during Georgia-Russia conflict and not knowing the situation on the land pilot refused to land there, they landed in Azerbaijan. As far as I remember pilot was praised by his commanders, but not - at least initially - by the President, who is Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces. I don't remember how it ended.

Plane was fully overhauled in December. These are old planes and they should be replaced as they are noisy and expensive to maintain, at the same time they are said to be correctly maintained and airworthy.

Edit: plane spent 5004 hours in the air and landed 1823 times, which is not much for this type of the plane.

 

[Borek]

Perhaps the 'cockpit voice recorder' will provide information - assuming that the particular plane was so equipped.

They said both recorders were already found.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

What a terrible thing. The world mourns with Poland today.

 

[Andre]

Plane was fully overhauled in December. These are old planes and they should be replaced as they are noisy and expensive to maintain, at the same time they are said to be correctly maintained and airworthy.

Edit: plane spent 5004 hours in the air and landed 1823 times, which is not much for this type of the plane.

Most landing incidents under poor visibility happen with perfectly airworthy aircraft. The problem is often the transition from some form of instrument approach to visual landings. In all instrument approaches the information about the aircraft position and vector are second hand, we used to call it 'eye ball MK II'. Moreover, this information is subject to errors inherent to transmissions in the electromagnic spectrum, which means that the aircraft may not be on the perfect approach path. So at a certain point, the decision height, the pilot has to make a decision to land or to initiate a missed approach, depending if he has the runway environment visual and is in a position to land. That decision is not a simple yes-no. Maybe he thought he could manoeuvre the aircraft to a position to land, who would know? But sometimes -albeit very rarely- decisions are wrong.

The voice recorder is only of help of course for discussions in the microphones. Side discussions may not have been registrated.

 

[dlgoff]

Would you believe it - I have learned about his death from PF :shock:

I was thinking about you buddy when I heard the news. So sad.

 

[MotoH]

You can replace presidents. Generals are the hard ones to replace.

The loss of life here is stunning. R I P again to those who lost their lives in this unfortunate accident.

 

[drizzle]

... Best wishes for stability and peace.

Same here... :SAD:

 

[Borg]

When I first saw the news this morning, the story only noted the president and his wife. Obviously it was much worse than that. My deepest condolences to the people of Poland.

 

[Frame Dragger]

Ninety Five people (87 passengers), and all souls lost on board?! I can hardly believe it.

This is so tragic, especially for the families and the people, and Poland in general. Damn, he wasn't protested, and fairly elected. It's just sad to see this, and the irony of the trip.

@MotoH: True, but losing your president has a psychological impact, ableit not the same that assasination does. Beyond the generals too, there was a LOT of other experience, not to mention a bishop which if I understand correctly, was very important to Poland. This has to be a kick in the stones on a number of levels, for the nation. On a personal level, I suppose tragedy is tragedy... loss is loss.

 

[Borek]

a bishop which if I understand correctly, was very important to Poland

With all due respect - no. No idea about whom you may be thinking, but none of the priests aboard was widely known. I think I have heard about two of them earlier. For sure they were not random people, but some of them were well known only in their circles. Please remember that important part of the delegation were people representing so called Katyń families - and while the group is well known here, individual members are not necesarilly recognizable.

 

[MotoH]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_QE9EPZdw5s

 

[Frame Dragger]

With all due respect - no. No idea about whom you may be thinking, but none of the priests aboard was widely known. I think I have heard about two of them earlier. For sure they were not random people, but some of them were well known only in their circles. Please remember that important part of the delegation were people representing so called Katyń families - and while the group is well known here, individual members are not necesarilly recognizable.

Ahhh.. I apologize, I'm going only by media reports. As for respect, don't worry, I'm not religious, but I was under the impression that modern Poland is very devoutly Catholic. So, I made assumptions, with predictable results. I do know about the massacre, and the modern delegation... it's surreal that this happened.

EDIT: I've been thinking about what to compare this to in the USA... and the only thing I can imagine would be a delegation of surviving WWII veterans, all dying in a crash. There is a loss of historical contuinity here, that is just too sudden.

 

[MotoH]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B4C0q2FBURY

 

[rewebster]

what a terrible thing to happen---what a sad day for Poland

 

[MotoH]

[PLAIN]http://img249.imageshack.us/img249/3217/cialoprezydentawrocilo4.jpg

[PLAIN]http://img249.imageshack.us/img249/2386/cialoprezydentawrocilo4n.jpg

[PLAIN]http://img249.imageshack.us/img249/9581/cialoprezydentawrocilo4z.jpg

[PLAIN]http://img145.imageshack.us/img145/6672/z7759124x.jpg

[PLAIN]http://img249.imageshack.us/img249/372/cialoprezydentawrocilo4pn.jpg

[PLAIN]http://img249.imageshack.us/img249/4523/cialoprezydentawrocilo4j.jpg

 

[Frame Dragger]

Oh lord... At least the Polish people are incredibly strong and resiliant. Still, this is something no country or family should endure.

 

[player1_1_1]

I am from Poland, and it was very sad for me hearing that our president and many important officials died in crash... 70 years after soviets killed twenty thousands of our high officers. This place will be a double historical symbol for us. When I heard I couldn't believe this... it will be a huge lost for our minds, and for country - they were our most elite representatives... rest in peace [*]

 

[Borek]

Russian main TV stations showed movie "Katyń" by Wajda today in prime time. In few hours they did more to tell Russian people about the massacre than in the last 70 years.

 

[Frame Dragger]

Russian main TV stations showed movie "Katyń" by Wajda today in prime time. In few hours they did more to tell Russian people about the massacre than in the last 70 years.

That is a bitter irony, but perhaps it might comfort the relatives of the Katyn delegation. At this point, any source of solace has to be worth it, within reason for Poland and for those most immidiately effected.

 

[MotoH]

The victims:

President of the Republic of Poland - Lech Kaczynski and his wife - Maria Kaczynska
http://img687.imageshack.us/img687/4928/pap201001211092.jpg

Maciej Płażyński, Senator, Deputy Speaker of Senate

KRZYSZTOF PUTRA, DEPUTY SPEAKER OF THE LOWER HOUSE - Law and Justice MP

JERZY SZMAJDINSKI, DEPUTY SPEAKER OF THE LOWER HOUSE - Demorcatic Left Alliance MP

RYSZARD KACZOROWSKI, FORMER PRESIDENT-IN-EXILE

Andrzej Przewoznik - President of the Council for the Protection of Struggle and Martyrdom Sites

Krupski Janusz, Head of the Office for Veterans and Victims Affairs

Stasiak Władysław, Head – Office of the President

Kurtyka Janusz, Chairman National Remembrance Institute

Kochanowski Janusz, Civil Rights Ombundsman

Skrzypek Slawomir - Head of the National Bank of Poland

Merta Tomasz, Under-secretary of State Ministry of Culture and National Heritage

Komorowski Stanisław Jerzy, Undersecretary of State Ministry of Defence

Kremer Andrzej, Undersecretary of State Ministry of Foreign Affairs

Bochenek Krystyna, Deputy Speaker of the Lower House of Parliament

General Buk Tadeusz, Commander in Chief of the Polish Army

General Blasik Andrzej, Commander in Chief of the Air Force

General Gągor Franciszek, Chief of Staff of the Polish Army

General Gilarski Kazimierz, Commander of the Warsaw Garrison

General Potasiński Włodzimierz, Commander in Chief of the Polish Special Forces

General Kwiatkowski Bronisław, Operational Commander Polish Army

Rear Admiral Karweta Andrzej, Commander in Chief of the Polish Navy

Handzlik Mariusz, Undersecretary of State Office of the President

Wypych Paweł, Secretary of State Office of the President

Szczygło Aleksander, Head National Security Office

 

[MotoH]

Rumianek Ryszard, Rector Cardinal Stefan Wyszynski University

Agacka-Indecka Joanna, Chair of the Polish Bar Council

Fetlińska Janina, Senator - (PiS) Law And Justice

Zając Stanisław, Senator - (PiS) Law and Justice

Wojtas Edward, MP (PSL) Polish Peoples Party

Woda Wiesław, MP (PSL) Polish Peoples Party

Karpiniuk Sebastian, MP (PO) Civic Platform

Rybicki Arkadiusz, MP (PO) Civic Platform

Deptula Leszek, MP (PSL) Polish Peoples Party

Natalli-Świat Aleksandra, MP (PiS) Law and Justice

Jaruga-Nowacka Izabela, MP (SLD) Democratic Left Alliance

Dolniak Grzegorz, MP (PO) Civic Platform

Gosiewski Przemysław, MP (PiS) Law and Justice

Szymanek-Deresz Jolanta, MP (SLD) Democratic Left Alliance

Wasserman Zbigniew, MP (PiS) Law and Justice

Gęsicka Grażyna, MP (PIS) Law and Justice

Nurowski Piotr, Head of the Polish Olympic Comitee (PKOL)

Osiński Jan, Field Chaplain Polish Army

Chodakowski Miron, Russian Orthodox Chaplain of the Polish Army

Płoski Tadeusz, Field Chaplain Polish Army

 

[Frame Dragger]

You're a good person MotoH.

EDIT: Oh lord, some of those people's knowledge and talent can't be replaced anytime soon, if at all. I can honestly say I'm glad that my grandmother is not alive to see this.

 

[Math Is Hard]

Thank you for the pictures, Motoh. I'm astounded by the loss of all these people, and I'm so sorry Borek, for you and for Poland.

 

[waht]

People here in Chicago put up Polish flags on their cars, and lighted lots of candles. There is just so much support everywhere, and not just from the Polish people, but from Americans which project so much genuine sympathy to the loss.

 

[Frame Dragger]

I don't know that there has been a decaptitating strike in history as devestating as this tragic accient! I mean... the heads of ALL branches of the service?! Maybe Vlad Tepes came close, but that was sysematic slaughter (not to mention his inauguration).