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From the investigation as reported today, there is mention that the attempted first landing was on AUTOPILOT! There was an earlier report of “Landing systems’ incompatibility. It seems to be a problem with today’s young pilots: a manual landing is too difficult a task not performed regularly. See also crash of Airbus 330 at Tripoli Airport.
(Aviation Herald) – The Russian MAK in cooperation with the Polish Accident Investigators published first preliminary results of their investigation stating, that there is no evidence in support of any inflight breakup, inflight fire or any mechanical malfunction prior to first impact with an obstacle 1100 meters before the runway threshold (see the sketch of the impact marks). The engines were working until final impact. The Terrain Awareness Warning System (TAWS), the Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) and the Flight Management System (FMS, UNS-1D) were working until final impact.
Airfield and navigation facilities were found suitable to receive the aircraft as well as the Polish Yak-40 that arrived 90 minutes prior to the Tupolev.
The cockpit voice recorder revealed, that persons not belonging to the flight crew were on the flight deck about 20 minutes prior to impact. Polish Authorities are working to identify the voices.
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18 seconds prior to impact with the first obstacle the TAWS alerted “PULL UP! PULL UP!” after it had already warned “Terrain ahead!” prior to this.
5 seconds prior to impact with first obstacles the decision was made to go around and the autopilot was disconnected.
The airplane first impacted a barrier 40 meters left of the extended centerline of the runway and 1100 meters before the threshold of the runway at an altitude, that was 15 meters BELOW the runway elevation. The third impact with an obstacle, a birch tree of 30-40cm trunk diameter contacted by the left hand wing, 840 meters before the runway threshold and about 80 meters left of the extended runway centerline, led to the first break up of the aircraft in flight, the aircraft rolled inverted and impacted ground 5 seconds later, that final impact occured at 10:41:06L (07:41:06Z). Impact forces were estimated in excess of 100G and were not surviveable.
Map: the accident trajectory, impact marks and terrain profile
On March 25th test flights were performed which confirmed the suitability of the aerodrome.
On April 5th the aerodrome was again inspected in preparation for the special flights, the MDA was set to the 100 meters AGL (328 feet) with a visibility requirement of 1000 meters.
From my earliest diary on crash, the following:
In one of my first comments I linked to these two possibilities:
Perhaps if the ILS equipment had a malfunction … or pilot received erroneous data from ATC.
(RT News) – Speaking to RT, defense analyst and former Polish military pilot Mikhal Fisher noted a previously unmentioned factor that possibly was one of the reasons for the crash.
- “In the Soviet Union/Russia they use a unique instrumental landing system called PRMG. It works almost exactly the same way as the international Western system ILS. However, the two are not compatible. The Polish airplane was modified to use the ILS, as the [Soviet] airplane was mainly flying to various airports that use it.”
≈ See also my first diary — Update on Crash Tupolev 154M ≈
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."
