The plane carrying the Polish president crashed in Russia today. All on-board were lost, including Poland’s army chief, Deputy Foreign Minister, the central bank governor, head of the National Security Office, the navy chief commander, deputy parliament speaker, Olympic Committee head and civil rights commissioner.
How could this happen? Looking on-line for an answer to that, I find that the pilot apparently ignored air traffic controllers and tried to land in dense fog at an airport that lacks instrument landing equipment. I also find much chatter about how unsafe the Tu-154 aircraft is.
The first I don’t know what to think of. Does a pilot make that choice? Particularly a pilot carrying a nation’s president?
The second lead me to look up the Tu-154. 66 crashes in 40-odd years sounds bad, but why? Terrorist bomb, mid-air collision, crash into snowplows on runway, shot down, ran out of fuel, maintenance error, crew forgot to put down landing gear(!), exceeded angle of attack, ran into a mountain …. There are a few that look like some sort of aircraft failure, but most look like human error. I don’t think this is an unsafe aircraft.
Russian Prime Minister Putin is overseeing the investigation.
I can’t help wondering.
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