BBC News - History of the Tupolev-154 plane

History of the Tupolev-154 plane

The Polish presidential plane - a Tupolev-154 The Tupolev-154 was for more than a quarter of a century the backbone of Russia's and the Soviet Union's air transport system. It carried about half the number of all passengers flown by Russia's national carrier Aeroflot and its successors in that time, with that number peaking at 137 million per year in 1990. About 1,000 were built, and some remain in service in Russia and countries that were once part of the Soviet bloc. The aircraft entered service in 1972 and was "modernised" in 1986, with new engines and equipment to improve its fuel consumption and flight operations. But as an indication of its ageing design, the Chinese government decided in 2001 to withdraw the Tu-154 from its airlines. Aeroflot took the decision to phase them out more recently, saying their high fuel consumption made them uneconomic. Difficult conditions An expert on Russian aviation, Paul Duffy, assessed the safety record of the Tu-154 in 2004, for the BBC News website. Of 28 lost in accidents up to that date - a figure about normal for the quantity, years of service and technology of the type, in his view - few had crashed because of technical failure, he said. "The Tu-154 operates in regions with not very good air traffic control and navigation equipment, and in very difficult weather conditions," he said at the time.

It's a pretty robust aeroplane, but the age is a concern - maintenance and checking for defects is critical as a plane gets older. One would think that a presidential plane would receive the best care... but things happen.

However, it does sound related to conditions and if they had ignored advice to land elsewhere... this highlights why the advice was given.

It is a little annoying that the press is focusing so much on the fact that the President died. Most headlines almost make it sound like it was a civilian aircraft on which the President happened to be flying rather than an official Polish government plane full of dignataries.

The brainless should not be in banking -- Willem Buiter

something is really wrong in relations between Russia and Poland if such events happen regularly even by accident

the control tower at the airport recommended that the president's plane be diverted to Minsk in Bielarus, and that the party should drive to the ceremony. But the president and the pilots decided to land in spite of the bad weather

On the other hand, of the President and the Prime Minister, only one was on the plane. The Speaker of the Sejm was back home and the deputy speakers of the Sejm and Senate were on the plane. And so on. The only other head of something was the military Chief of Staff...

The brainless should not be in banking -- Willem Buiter

Russian media reports said [Kaczynski] had once become angry with a pilot who refused to land in Tbilisi, the Georgian capital, on the grounds that it was unsafe. The same thing may have happened at Smolensk, aviation experts claimed. They suggested he may have pressed the pilot to make at least two attempts to land. [...]

A Russian military aircraft that attempted to land at the Smolensk airfield half an hour before the arrival of the Polish plane aborted because of the fog and was diverted to Moscow.

"No one should have been landing in that fog," said a Russian air traffic control official who had been present during conversations with the pilot. (London Times)

Back in 2008, when Georgia and Russia fought their brief war, Kaczynski was on his way to Tbilisi to support Georgian President, Mikheil Saakashvili, in what he saw as fight with the Kremlin's "new imperialism".

Air traffic control told the pilot of Kaczynski's plane to turn back because it was too dangerous to land in Tbilisi, but the president -- who also is commander in chief under Poland's law -- ordered the pilot to land anyway. (Reuters)

It has been said on the Polish radio that no civilian pilot would have agreed to land and military pilots would only "attempt" to land under strict orders (remember, the commander in chief as well as the heads of all the military branches were on board - there has since been back-pedaling and possible blame shifting - as it is being reported that the pilot would have final judgment which stretches credibility). It totally fits with Kaczynski's bravado style to have ordered the pilot to land and that it would have been unacceptable to him to arrive in the less dignified manner of by bus after landing at another airport - especially in Russia - he was very much into pomp and political ceremony or late and thus miss the event - if they had gone to Minsk they would have been stuck on the tarmac for hours as they were not prepared for the security. It just fits Kaczynski's rash style that they decided to attempt anyway even with repeated aborted attempts.

It will be very interesting to see what happens politically as this has almost completely wiped out the extreme right-wing as it has become clear that is who comprised the bulk of the passenger list (with a few very notable exceptions) - it should be known that Kaczynski was in the habit of showing up at events such as EU summits unannounced to which Tusk had been invited as the official representative causing much confusion and embarrassment - the official Katyń memorial with Tusk (the Prime Minister who actually runs the administration of the country) and Putin along with Lech Wełęsa and the cultural elite such as Andrzej Wajda took place last Tuesday (Putin even acknowledging Katyń being a huge step forward in Russian-Polish relations). The plane was a Kaczynski/PIŚ (Kaczynski's right-wing political party) organized secondary 'patriotic/religious' event (to be honest, I think the first event was about Polish-Russian reconciliation where this event was about nationalism) and was thus a concentration of people from that party - talking with a Polish friend here (in Poland) last night who had lived in the US, she encapsulated it well: it is very equivalent to if when Bush was in office if he, his staff and the GOP leadership, and right-wing religious leaders had all been on the same flight and only Cheney was left - in the form of Kaczynski's more ambitious twin. Where it will go, who knows....

After the death of Polish President Lech Kaczynski journalists drew attention to several facts that preceded the current disaster. In particular, in January 2008, tragedy struck when the military transport aircraft CASA-295M with the high command of the Polish Air Force crashed near the city of Szczecin. The plane crashed while landing, falling from a height of 200 meters. It caught fire in the woods about 800 meters from the aerodrome. Passengers of the plane were the participants of the annual conference on aviation safety. [!] Moreover, the pilot of the CASA-295M made several attempts to land in difficult weather conditions. Evidently, no conclusions were drawn from this tragedy.

Black days in Poland

A bomb, H bomb, Minuteman / The names get more attractive / The decisions are made by NATO / The press call it British opinion -- The Three Johns