Last week polish presidential flight an aging Tu-154 crashed near smolensk airport.The aircraft was trying to land after three failed attempts.As a professional air traffic management executive I am tempted to comment on this unfortunate event.Lets start with the aircraft.These Russian made Tu-154 are withdrawn from operation all over the world.There have been 54 accidents involving Tu-154 in last four decades.There were dense fog over the air field.The air traffic control advised the pilot to divert to some other airport like Moscow.But the pilot disobeyed that instruction and after three failed attempts in the fourth attempt it met with the accident.Nowadays in modern airports there is a system called Instrument landing system(ILS).This system provides vertical and horizontal guidance to an approaching aircraft.Landing phase is the most crucial of all phases of a flight.Most of the accident takes place either at the time of landing or take off.In heavy fog also with the help of ILS aircraft can land even in zero visibility.But this system was not available in smolensk airport.As ILS was not available the aircraft had to see the terrain on its approach for landing.Due to heavy fog on that day the pilot could not see the terrain and it reportedly hit treetops and crashed into pieces.Only after through investigation the cause of accident will be clear.But this could be a reasonable guess.Now the question is why the pilot wanted to land so desperately when visibility was so poor.Some speculations are there that the pilot acted as per instruction given by polish top bosses including the president.The president Kaczynski desperately wanted to attend the commemoration of Katyn killings.Thousands of poles were slaughtered by soviet secret police in katyn forest back in 1940.The president was going to attend a ceremony commemorating that event.It is an irony that the plane crashed just a short drive from katyn forest.Katyn takes more polish toll.Destiny!!!
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