As such, all communication between Smolensk ATC and PLF 101 was carried out in Russian. They also determined that the aircraft was 40 metres (130 ft) lower than it should have been. [13], The captain and first officer's decision making may have also been affected by knowledge of a 2008 flight when the President of Poland ordered a change in destination right before departure and again while airborne. Poland says that original documentation about loading and weight measure was destroyed. [71] Poland also published a final version of MAK report with changes performed by MAK in reaction for Polish comments highlighted (red color means changes of text, blue means text addition). [3], Complicating the situation was the increased workload on the captain. ATC gave distance callouts on average 500 metres (1,600 ft) in advance, and told the aircraft it was on the correct glidepath when it actually was not. Co-pilot Grzywna had 1,909 hours, with 475 of them on the Tu-154. The President and the First Lady, President of Poland's Central Bank, Vice-Marshal of the Sejm (who was also a candidate in the future presidential elections), many members of the Parliament, President of the Institute of National Remembrance, and many high-ranking officials. He said that there were no doubts about the plane's airworthiness. [65] This prompted a Warsaw court and a separate military investigation. The Polish Armed Forces were dealt a severe blow, however, since all of their senior commanding officers were killed; their duties were automatically taken over by respective deputy commanders, following standard contingency plans for such a situation. [44] However, according to Tomasz Pietrzak, the former commander of the Polish 36th Special Aviation Regiment, the captain of PLF 101 was fluent in Russian and English. call was given 11 seconds too late.[72]. Lacking charts or a flight plan for the new destination, the captain of that flight had decided he could not bring the aircraft to the new destination safely. [6], The aircraft was a Tupolev Tu-154M of the 36th Special Aviation Regiment of the Polish Air Force (Siły Powietrzne), tail number 101. In a normal situation, this would dictate that the first officer be the pilot actually flying the airplane, but as the weather was bad the captain, as the most experienced member of the crew, elected to fly the airplane as well. N1 and N2 refer to the spools, or shafts, of a jet engine on which the compressor and turbine blades are mounted; jet engine power is measured as a percentage of maximum N1 or N2 rpm. [3] The Quick Access Recorder, designed and produced in Poland, was sent to Poland and analysed there, with the participation of Russian experts. It has also created a deep sense of grievance that has shaped Polish political life since then. The captain and first officer had been the first officer and navigator, respectively, on that flight. Expressed lack of any document that confirms PLF 101's status under Russian law. Polish and international investigations did not find any evidence supporting this claim.[2]. Watch later. Radios were tuned to the two Non-Directional Beacons (NDBs) present at the field, and the autopilot was set up to use waypoints from the Flight Management System (FMS) units for navigation. [3] Additionally, the MAK report found an "immediate cause" of the accident was the presence in the cockpit of the Commander-in-Chief of the Polish Air Force, which placed extreme stress and "psychological pressure" on the Captain to "continue descent in conditions of unjustified risk with a dominating aim of landing at any means. This had the effect of increasing the altimeter's reading by 170 metres (560 ft); as the TAWS takes readings from this particular altimeter, this had the additional effect of silencing the warning. The Terrain Awareness Warning System (TAWS) fired its first audible warning "terrain ahead!" [3] The controllers instructed the captain as to the landing minimum of 100 metres (330 ft), to which the captain replied, "Yes, sir! A week of national mourning was declared in Poland. A list of documents, evidence, and other information requested by Poland but not received from the Russian side (First table in document "Lista Wystapien Strony Polskiej o Dokumentacje", List of requests from Poland about documentation. Doubts about Smolensk compliance with Russian regulations because there were trees and other obstacles in an area 300 to 900 m long before the runway. This change was made after the aircraft began its final approach and soon after the first TAWS warning sounded. 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