Talk:Smolensk air disaster

Communications blackout ?

According to this chart I found in a BBC article, the aircraft lost communication at 0640 GMT. 16 minutes later, at 0656 GMT the plane was reported to have crashed. Is this information genuine, or it's a BBC blunder ? Was there a 16 minutes communications blackout ? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.137.70.94 (talk) 22:25, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

The plane probably crashed shortly after it lost communication, but wasn't reported as crashed until shortly afterwards. 84.92.117.93 (talk) 22:50, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

I've looked at the article and I find no reference to the crew losing communications with ATC? Wackywace (talk) 10:34, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

I've clearly indicated the source of that claim. It's this chart that is present at the end of the BBC article, that I've mentioned earlier. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.137.70.94 (talk) 13:28, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

The BBC seem to be having a problem converting Moscow time to GMT! They've changed the image now to one that says contact lost at 10:50 Moscow time, but still with the conversion to 06:40 GMT! Physchim62 (talk) 17:54, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

Allegation of a terrorist attack

I think it is a wrong unsourced allegation. There is no evidence, at all, that this accident could be related to a terrorist attack. Even if we have to wait for further investigation, this deadly and sad plane crash is an accident. By the way, the allegation of a russian missile i, by now wrong, too. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.112.145.199 (talk) 22:37, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

It's an obvious vandal. I reported him, let's see how fast the reaction comes. --Illythr (talk) 22:39, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

PAR at Smolensk?

Was the Smolensk airfield equipped with Precision Approach Radar? I've heard reports that the tower was trying to give the flight crew vectors for the course and glideslope, but the pilot disregarded those instructions. Is that correct? 24.23.197.43 (talk) 01:05, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

Lack of ILS

Is this section necessary? The runway being "rather short" obviously had nothing to do with the catastrophe, and I suppose the ILS or its absence still had no effect on the aircraft, had not it? This information concerns the airbase, not the air crash in question. Hellerick (talk) 02:47, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

I am also against of listing it as cause of crash - Polish flight had two points where it could change its destiny, at planning with consequent take off, and when they were offered to flight Moscow or Minsk. They turned down both and did what they did. We know outcome.silpol (talk) 06:48, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

The absence of ILS made landing in fog much more dangerous, so it is relevant. The runway was a shorter than at major civilian airports but sufficient for a safe landing in normal weather conditions. Sourcelat0r (talk) 03:04, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

It is relevant as major factor which added to difficulties for pilot to land but until(if ever) we get information about flight planning from Polish sources and landing decision making from black boxes, whole causal model has some problem from formal logic. Fog happens here and there all the time, and traffic controllers usually have plan B landing, and in this case flight had been offered two other guidance variants. In other words it makes sense to mark absence of ILS as contributing factor but as cause it doesn't count.silpol (talk) 06:48, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

Had the field been equipped with Cat-3 ILS, the pilots would've had precision course and glideslope guidance down to the runway level, which would've allowed them to make a full-instrument landing safely even in dense fog. As it was, with only a locator outer marker for guidance, I don't think even someone like Wiley Post or Amelia Earhart could've made this landing without cracking up. 24.23.197.43 (talk) 03:09, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

And had Polish delegation a personal monorail from Warsaw to Smolensk, they wouldn't need to fly and bother to have pilots. But monorails don't grow here and there themselves on demand. And Soviet military airstrips had not been built for VIP landings. So hypothetical (conditional) arguments are good for future planing but extremely poor for making conclusions in aftermath - it might be adding factor of problems but certainly not a cause.silpol (talk) 06:48, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

The ceremony they were travelling to

It's a black irony of course that this swathe of elite Poles died on the way to conmemorate the Katyn massacre, which had also been a blotting out of - an intentional attempt to wipe out - a large part of the elite of Polish society. But the article should state clearly that they were not going to the joint official Russo-Polish conmemorations - those had taken place three days earlier and with the Polish PM in attendance. President Kaczynski had been denied invitation to this by the Russians and had chosen to go three days later for a ceremony that would be, I understand, mostly unilaterally Polish. The fact that he was kept out by the Russian government at this highly charged memorial day shows how strained the relations between the Russians and him, personally, were - the President and the PM are not of the same party, of course - and how sore the subject of Katyn still is between the two countries, but this keep-out gesture might also give a clue why the pilot persisted in trying to land at Smolensk despite bad weather and despite warnings from the ground control people that it was now perilous. The pilot, or likely someone in the flight party, perhaps even Kaczynski himself, may have thought it was a sordid final attempt by the Russians to keep them out once more, and then may have decided they must land at Smolensk or they would never get there. The news coverage yesterday didn't really point out that the destination was not the shared memorial ceremony, so you got the impression that it was (I only read it as an aside in a news piece an hour ago, in the morning paper) but it's a rather vital piece of info I think. Strausszek (talk) 03:32, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

I agree, this should be explained. The current article makes a quick mention of a "political disagreement" between the President and PM as the reason, but this is next to useless. I had been wondering why he was going to the event if the event had taken place a few days ago... Esn (talk) 04:08, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

Partly to blame is the still poorly defined division of responsibility for foreign policy between the President and Prime Minister in the Polish political system. Since Tusk was invited, one could think that his presence would have been sufficient to represent Poland at the commemoration. However, Kaczynski did not believe so, and insisted on making a visit himself on a different day. Political rivalry between Tusk and Kaczynski seems to have played a significant role. Sourcelat0r (talk) 05:44, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

I think the article makes to much of this already. Kaczynski and his party were travelling to the official commemoration which had been organized by the Polish government body responsible for such things: Tusk and his party took part in an official ceremony organized by Russia to commemorate the massacre. I fail to see how the political rivalry between the two of them could be said to be responsible for the crash, unless one claims that Kaczynski was suicidal or that Tusk wished to wipe out a large number of Poland's public figures, both of which claims are as ludicrous as they are in bad taste in the circumstances. You can't say that the crash happened because Kacynski wanted to go to Katyn: heads of state make all sorts of trips like this all the time, including some pretty difficult landings. Physchim62 (talk) 10:03, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

I simply meant that if there was less rivalry and responsibilities were better defined, then there would have been only one Polish highest level delegation, most likely the one led by Tusk as he was invited personally, and this particular crash would simply not have happened, because there would have been no trip. I am not trying to assign blame to any side, obviously. Sourcelat0r (talk) 17:07, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

It's under "Pilot ignoring advice from air traffic control" now, but it ought to be made clearer early in the article. Matters to make it plain that the conmemoration that Kaczynski's group was going to was not the joint memorial, because up till recently, the Poles, but not Russia have been conmemorating Katyn in official ways. There was a mutual declaration to build a memorial complex in the nineties and some of that has been built, but the conmemorations have often been a nexus of conflict. This year was the first one that a Russian "leader" in office (was it Putin or Medvedev?) actually admitted at the memorial ceremony that Soviet Russia was to blame. So, if someone who has heard bits and pieces about Katyn and about the air disaster comes here and sees that Kaczynski was going to "the official commemoration which had been organized by the Polish government body responsible for such things", then it's likely he might slip to the conclusion that this was the joint memorial service. Because there hadn't really been much official Russian participation before. If the other celebration, the one Tusk and Putin were at, isn't cited in contrast nearby, that's the conclusion many people will likely draw. Normally, if two or more countries are involved in a memorial anniversary linked to a certain place, there's only one main celebration at that place, the joint one.Strausszek (talk) 18:14, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

It does look as if Kaczynski's vanity is responsible for the mess - I can't imagine the pilot attempting such a dangerouslanding of his own free will.

I think the wording now "The official commemoration, organized by Polish Council for the Protection of Struggle and Martyrdom Sites" is misleading, as it suggests this one, rather than the joint Russian-Polish commemoration on the 7th where prime ministers of both countries were present, was official. Perhaps this one could be called "another official commemoration"? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.180.168.196 (talk) 22:40, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

That's roughly my point too, and I think we need to find wordings that are clear but which don't invite editing from partisans of various people and countries in order to make backdoor implications about which memorial gathering was the good one, the honest one, the official one, whether Putin should have stayed out of it because he was an old KGB man, and so on. We could easily get edit warring on this point, precisely because what people might want to sneak in doesn't have to be stated fully.Strausszek (talk) 23:47, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

The Council have been organizing the ceremonies every year, so to answer your point it is sufficient to replace "official" with "traditional" or something similar in meaning. 89.161.19.226 (talk) 23:56, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

"Traditional" doesn't quite work. But I would assume that Saturday's ceremony had been planned long before Putin issued his invitation to Tusk in February. I don't think one is less "official" than the other, simply that they were organized by different people. But neither should we imply that Saturday's ceremony was just some whim of Kaczynski. Physchim62 (talk) 00:03, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

If the Russo-Polish memorial days are kept up regularly, - and now, there will be a strong expectation both from within Russian government level and from other states, that they should be kept going - they too will become traditional. I don't know how you feel about this, but my way of treating an article of this kind is that, if possible, what's stated or discussed should be phrased in a way that remains true in the future as well. Even if the facts regarding the present don't change, they could be "re-framed" by developments in the near future (e.g. a statement auch as "X is now deputy prime minister" should always have a date, or an embedded pointer to when was "now", and "Usain Bolt is the finest sprinter ever" is not useful because it isn't framed in time in a precise way - it's conceivable that somebody will beat his records one day - apart from being POV). In print reference works, it's mostly made clear what time is referred to, whether it's by the print date of the book or by explicitly framing an event within the text, as regards its place in the flow of time. Strausszek (talk) 02:24, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

But this article already covers an accident (rather incidental, in contrast to Usain Bolt's continuous existence), along with it's date. Isn't it obvious that it describes the matters as they were back then? 89.161.19.226 (talk) 07:13, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Yes, but figure that people will be turning to the article in ten years time from now or later. By then, it will still be obvious what date it happened of course, but words like "traditional conmemoration" (meaning the gathering Kaczynski was going to - see my comment; the Russo-Polish solemnities may become a lasting tradition too), that kind of loose phrasings about the circumstances, may have become misleading, even if they were not deceiving at the time they were written (=now). We can't just rely on that the entire article will be painstakingly revised at any given date in the future, so that this kind of thing would be sorted out.

I know it's not that obvious an example right here, but this kind of thing, statements or conditions that you could claim were true at one time, near the time of writing, but which might become superseded by what happens later in history, but 'outside the scope of the article, can serve as a way to twist an article to a biased perspective. Strausszek (talk) 09:32, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

I see your point, but you base your opinion on assumption that, in the future, commemoration ceremony MAY look different. I'm sure you believe it's very likely to happen, but I'm also sure many people would disagree. In any way, nothing has changed yet. Let's stick to the facts. 89.161.19.226 (talk) 17:25, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Didn't something like this happen in Africa recently?

Sometime within the last five years, didn't some african country lose its entire military leadership in a plane crash?

Do we have an article on it? And would it be appropriate to put in the "see article" section here? JD Caselaw (talk) 04:05, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps this 2006 Nigerian crash? No WP article it seems. WWGB (talk) 04:25, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

• Yes, that's exactly what I was looking for. Although my own searches just revealed yet another such incident: an April 4 2001 crash killing 14 senior Sudanese leaders: [1] [2] [3] [4] [5].

• I suppose there could be some helpful context if we wrote stub articles on 2006 Nigerian Air Force Dornier 228 crash and on 2001 Sudanese Air Force Antonov AN-24 crash. I will start the latter article. JD Caselaw (talk) 05:00, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

OK I created the stub articles; made sure they're linked to at List of accidents and incidents involving military aircraft (2000–present); and added that page to the see also section here. I'm calling it a wrap -- but feel free to pick up where I left off! JD Caselaw (talk) 05:26, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

They could also be mentioned at the (year) in aviation article, and added to the List of aircraft by tail number article. Mjroots2 (talk) 06:04, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

Political aftermath

Thanks for making my submission more in par with english syntax. However, I don't agree with opinion that it "seems unrelated". The accident had tremendous impact on politics of Poland, and the full context should certainly be included like I did before, not limited to names of the victims. Also, the statement that "both ruling coalition and opposition were represented on the plane" is a bit misleading, since opposition sent two Vice-Marshalls of Sejm (along with a number of regular MP's) and coalition only a few little-known (with exception of Sebastian Karpiniuk) and low-ranking MP's. The opposition in Poland has been literally slaughtered, and it's something that must be understood by foreign readers. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.161.19.226 (talk) 09:05, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

Slaughtered? This is a huge exaggeration. The Sejm has 460 deputies, and 14 have perished in the crash (i.e. 3%). This is a horrible tragedy of course, but not of the magnitude that you are suggesting. The dead deputies will be automatically replaced by people from the same party according to Polish election rules, so there is no gain in mandates from their deaths for any party.

The political consequences will play themselves out. Wikipedia does not need to make predictions about the future, especially if they are not backed up by sources.

I will agree with you that the opposition had higher calibre people on the plane (not surprising as it was the president's plane and he does belong to the opposition party). I suppose Obama would probably have more high level Democrats than Republicans on Air Force One during an average flight. This is quite normal and does not need to be emphasized too much. Sourcelat0r (talk) 09:16, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

Of course it's not surprising. So what? Even unsurprising facts should get mentioned. By "slaughtered" i meant not the numbers, but the high ranks of people on board. 89.161.19.226 (talk) 19:51, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

Blocking IPs

I'm sorry to bring this up, but isn't there a Wikipaedia policy that someone who modifies an article again and again against consent (like for more than 2 or 3 times in several hours or a day, I don't know the exact policy) should have his IP banned. This kind of a page is where Wikipedia's credibility is usually tested.

I PROPOSE that a moderator or whatever the power-that-be is called to watch this article and band the conspiracy theorists who violate wikipedia's policy and make everyone look like a lunatic. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.77.251.17 (talk) 09:39, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

You mean a admin (like me). For an article as fluid as this is, there has been relatively little vandalism, and I don't think that any has been sufficiently bad to warrant jumping straight in with the banhammer. Any editor who is being disruptive should be warned, and if the disruption continues reported to WP:AIV. I've got this article on my watchlist in any case. Mjroots (talk) 14:23, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

The crash that killed Władysław Sikorski in 1943 still produces conspiracy theories, although most historians accept that it was a simple crash. There has been no wild speculation about the 2010 crash as yet, and no significant IP vandalism here.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 14:30, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

Actually, there has been some (1, 1 again, 2), but it's been dealt with. Depends on what you call significant, I guess. :-) So far, I don't think that anything more than editor vigilance is required. Should the dire need arise, short-term semi-protection can be used. Otherwise vandals are fairly quickly banned via the standard procedure. --Illythr (talk) 14:49, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

What I meant was that the mainstream media has accepted so far that the most likely cause was an accident. See also Aaliyah, where the pilot took off despite clear advice that the plane was overloaded.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 15:08, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

I was referring to significant IP vandalism here, not conspiracy theories, sorry for being unclear. Seems it's intensifying now... --Illythr (talk) 16:04, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

Enough: I have requested a 7 day semi-protection of the article to counter the now increasing number of vandalism by IP with crude terrorism, "Putin did it" ecc. nonsense. --noclador (talk) 15:56, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

GMT+1

What's with the random use of GMT+1 in some (but not all) parts of this article (e.g the first black box was found at "13:53 GMT +1", the second was found at "15:54 UTC")? Aviation works on UTC, Warsaw time is currently UTC+2, Smolensk and Moscow are both currently UTC+4. Britain is on UTC+1 currently, but I don't see what relevance that has to this article? I think we should standardise on UTC with local times in brackets afterwards. Thryduulf (talk) 11:10, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

Agreed, the article should stick to UTC and local time. British Summer Time is not directly relevant to this article.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 11:15, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

It's more usual it disaster articles to put local time first then UTC in brackets afterwards, but it's hardly a big deal. British Summer Time is completely irrelevant here, and the exact timings of the recovery of the flight recorders is not really relevant either. The only other relevant time is local solar time – the crash happened at about 9 a.m. local solar time, i.e. still quite early in the morning (hence the fog). Physchim62 (talk) 12:22, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

People add the time listed in the news pieces used as sources. This will all have to be standardized. --Illythr (talk) 12:33, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

Deletion Proposal

I am proposing this article for deletion. The plane crash is not notable, but the death of the president is. So all the information should be on the page about the polish president. This article is not notable and therefore not necessary. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.158.123.67 (talk) 12:26, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

A formal proposal for deletion should be made at WP:AFD. However, since the air crash is a major news event, it appears to satisfy WP:GNG as a standalone article. It would be off WP:TOPIC to include too much detail in the biography of Lech Kaczyński, who was one of a number of people to die in the crash.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 12:31, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

I do not think so. Rather most of this article is about the death of the polish president, so should all be part of his page. There is no need for this article as its not notable, and delete as per norm. All the other politicians are minor politicians, and a breif mention on their page should be enough.98.158.123.67 (talk) 12:33, 11 April 2010 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.176.26.4 (talk)

Feel free to go to AFD with it, and brace for all the speedy keeps that will follow. --Illythr (talk) 12:37, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

And brace yourself for being banned from this site for disruption. Physchim62 (talk) 12:39, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

Major air crashes usually have articles looking in detail at the events. A deletion proposal is likely to risk WP:SNOW rejection.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 12:40, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

Considering this for deletion is ridiculous. This article contains lots of information completely irrelevant to the president. Not NOTABLE? Don't forget that 96 other people died. This definitely deserves its own article. Icedragz (talk) 12:59, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

Please don't add any more food. --Illythr (talk) 13:03, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

The rest of the world might first off notice the death of the president, but actually the chopping down of much of the top command of the military, of several MPs and church dignitaries and so on, makes it much more than the death fo a single man. It's unparalleled in peacetime in any western country for I don't know how far back, but at least for 150 years. Strausszek (talk) 18:28, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

Go ahead and nominate it for deletion if you must, but your AFD nomination result will be "speedy keep" because every airliner crash is deemed notable enough for Wikipedia. Comet Tuttle (talk) 19:33, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

I don't know about 'every airliner crash' is notable. Presuming you mean any airplane (since this was a military plane, not a regularly scheduled airline) then there are plenty of small single person planes that crash and if they don't involve notable people or have anything else ususual we don't tend to end up with articles, even coverage in RS may be rather limited. However a crash which kills 96 people, the highest for the year so far and including quite a few of the important people of a country like the already mentioned President but also 6/7 of the top military commanders or something et al, with allthe associated mourning, political ramifications etc well yes there's no dispute that that's notable. Nil Einne (talk) 00:53, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

The notability guidelines for air accidents and incidents are at WP:AIRCRASH. This incident definitely meets criteria: L3 (Smolensk Oblast) and P1. It also arguably meets A1 (most significant Tu-154 accident) and C1 (most significant crash of a flight carrying national leaders); possibly M1 and M3 (although I don't think it meets the spirit of M3) and potentially M2 (although that's speculation at this point). So it's clear that it is more than notable enough for it's own article (the guidelines are in beta testing, but the only discussion is that they're not lenient enough in some specific areas for some people). Thryduulf (talk) 09:11, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

No, I mean "airliner", though I was very vague about the term "crash". I meant a hull loss. (There's talk about hull-loss crashes being automatically notable over on the WP:AIRCRASH talk page; I thought that was already the guideline.) Comet Tuttle (talk) 17:09, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Comet Tuttle, that is the main area where consensus has not been established (hull losses). If nothing else, the death toll alone would be more than sufficient to establish notability (i.e. even if no Wikinotable people had been involved, it would still have sustained an article). Mjroots (talk) 17:17, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

"Poland's" should be a Wikilink

The word "Poland's" in the 1st sentence of the lead should be a Wikilink leading to the Poland article as not everyone knows what and where Poland is.--162.83.224.243 (talk) 20:56, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

 Not done. President and Lech Kaczyński are linked, which is enough for the lead to avoid ambiguity.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 21:01, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

Your personal opinion does not matter (see WP:NPV), so just do it instead of wasting time.--162.83.224.243 (talk) 23:31, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

Your request is hearby ignored as a consequence of WP:CIVIL. Physchim62 (talk) 23:39, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

It is not our problem some people failed basic geography and history. 130.56.93.135 (talk) 03:25, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

It's done. Let's all move on ... WWGB (talk) 03:29, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Poland's President would be better than Polish, because Polish may also pertain to any institution in Poland, e.g. an association of gum chewing. Shorter sentences would be better, e.g.: "...including Poland's President Lech Kaczyński and 42 other officials en route to the commemoration of the 70th anniversary of the Katyn massacre nearby. The crash also took lives of... . Katyn is located...". Physchim62, you do not want to make the correction for feeling offended? That is a good one... .--162.83.224.243 (talk) 14:58, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Why does this article not include a section to cover the pursuit of potential alternate explanations of the incident?

There are many different opinions out there on what might have happened, and it saddens me to see Wiki limiting itself to just whatever has been approved by the government censors who control the AP wire news service.

Does anyone even question why Putin would head the investigation? What does he know about plane crashes?

Also, the plane in question had recently been repaired in Russia, this DEFINITELY deserves prominent mention.

There are a lot of important details that are being LEFT out or MINIMIZED.

I just think this article needs some balance, thats all. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.16.160.245 (talk) 22:19, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

• Wikipedia only includes information from reliable sources: speculation and conspiracy theories have no place here. Physchim62 (talk) 22:30, 11 April 2010 (UTC)
• The media (and certainly this wiki article) make it seem like it's solely the pilot's fault. There was also misinformation that the pilot attempted four landings which has since been proven to be false. At this point, it's easiest to put the blame on the pilots, so that's what the media and editors of this article are doing. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.97.120.234 (talk) 22:33, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

Dear 88.16.160.245,

since you are probably the same person whose IP addresses have so far been blocked 3 times (i.e. 83.38.88.209, 83.38.89.237, 79.147.82.3), and a fourth time (83.38.90.51) resulted in this page being "protected" - all because of your vandalism - allow me to tell you that within hours of the incident, in the POLISH media, POLISH aviation experts (e.g. Tomasz Hypki, well known outside Poland, and Tomasz Szulc) came out drawing parallels to the 2008 Mirosławiec incident and pointing out that it was in all likelihood pilot error, and even giving reasons why this error may have occured (should you have any interest in the matter, "The Naked Pilot" is a very good book, and, believe you me, real PILOTS do read it). Instead you chose to bombard us with your demented conspiracy theories (alternative views, my @) for which the only support you might possibly produce comes from, not authoritative sources like experts or serious journalists, but readers' comments in on-line media, where, as we all know, the Twat-O-Tron is in full force the moment anything happens. Now get yourself a bottle of vino tinto ('coz we know where you live) and stop pestering us. G'nite. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.207.164.234 (talk) 22:53, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

• This article is now under KGB control. Move along. --Illythr (talk) 23:21, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

LOL Major lulz! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jros83 (talk • contribs) 23:33, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

Shhh, don't forget your instructions! Physchim62 (talk) 23:38, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

KGB is the acronym of the Swedish tv journalist Karl Gunnar Bergström. He hasn't commented yet, so he is most likely quite implicated.Strausszek (talk) 03:22, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Yes, exremely suspicious. Those initials couldn't possibly be a coincidence could they? Look out for the initials NKVD-OGPU-NKGB-MGB-KI-MVD-KGB-SVR-FSB-GRU too, and that 'NDB' they talk about, what does that stand for in Russian?, ('Non Directional Beacon'? yeh sure ! ) ;-). --220.101.28.25 (talk) 01:30, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Russia has NDB beacons that are the same as NDBs in the rest of the world. It's a nondirectional radio beacon. (N419BH (talk) 01:37, 13 April 2010 (UTC))

Threatened Termination of Pilot

Not a bad article. However, one sentence really seems out of place. The article right now states that: "In August 2008, the pilot of Kaczyński's plane was threatened with dismissal when he refused to land in Tbilisi during the South Ossetian war between Georgia and Russia." The source of this is a Russian news website and NOBODY else. The fact that this is coming from a Russian source should be indicated. Also, this makes it seem like he was flying into a war zone. He was there to meet with the presidents of Ukraine, Lithuania, and Estonia, as well as the prime minister of Latvia. Not exactly some outrageous and dangerous visit. At the time of the visit, it was not reported as some heroic act.

Even if true, it is not entirely relevant unless it is shown that the president forced the crew to try something dangerous in THIS case. Right now it's just another attempt to shift the blame to the pilot before everything is known. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.12.178.189 (talk) 03:45, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Would you be so kind as to lock this so that no one could add any 'conspiracy theories' bullshit ?? as a Pole I feel ashamed that there are some retarded anit-russian loonies who have to post such crap... oh and if possible restrain from posting speculations about the cause of the accident, while I personally belive that the pilot felt compelled to land there (knowing what happened to the pilot who refused to land in Tibilisin in 2008) there is no need to post information that has not been confirmed --83.20.26.12 (talk) 03:53, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Wait...is there a source for the statement regarding "what happened to the pilot who refused to land in Tbilisi" or NOT? You may FEEL that he was pressured, but this isn't an article for your feelings. So far all there is one reference in a SINGLE Russian news agency with no independent source. If it happened, why wasn't it reported in any Polish media, which wasn't exactly friendly to Kaczynski? It's not a "conspiracy" theory to ask that the pilot/president not be blamed prematurely.

Don't call people retarded. What, are you in grammar school?

To counter your claim that only the Russian news web site has this info - it was also in the National News of the German state TV ARD (the Tagesschau (Germany)) last night, where it was discussed at length between the reporter in Warsaw and the newscaster in Hamburg. And for the same conspiracy loving 24.12.178.189: He was most definitely flying into a war-zone, where Georgian SAM batteries were duking it out with Russian Ground Attack fighters... --noclador (talk) 04:50, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Another impossible to verify source. What was the name of the reporter? What was the reporter's source? This website? Again, where is ANY mention of this on a real press website. Not everyone that disagrees with you is "conspiracy loving." I just don't blindly trust something that has no verifiable source. Believe me, if this actually happened, the Polish press would have had a field day. The point is the president wasn't there as some lone fanatic. He was meeting other presidents as well. ALL of them would have to want to go into a dangerous war zone? Now that's a conspiracy...and by heads of state to top it off! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.12.178.189 (talk) 04:56, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

then feast your eyes on this sources: New York Times: "Mr. Kaczynski got into a dispute with a pilot flying his plane to the Georgian capital, Tbilisi, according to reports at the time. "; SBS Australia: "On a flight to Tbilisi during the war in Georgia, Kaczynski reportedly entered the cockpit after the pilot said it was too dangerous to land."; Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung: "Kaczynski befahl damals, dennoch in Tiflis zu landen, was der Pilot allerdings verweigerte." (Kaczynski ordered then to land in Tbilisi, which the pilot refused); also NTV, Süddeutsche Zeitung, and and and... enough sources? and now go back into your basement in the US and stop bothering serious editors with your conspiracy bollocks. --noclador (talk) 05:27, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

I'm satisfied with these additional sources. However, noclador, you're acting poorly with name calling. Geez, everyone is very grateful to you for your self-appointed role as "vandalism"/"conspiracy theory" preventer. However, you need to learn some social skills. 1. I did not "vandalize" the page by adding anything to it, just opened a discussion on the "talk page" about what I thought was a premature statement with obvious innuendo that the president is responsible for the crash. 2. Asking for some sources is not a "conspiracy theory." I was concerned about one source and voiced my concerns. Apparently, you feel that you're in charge. Well, you might have appointed yourself major domo, but that only means you have a lot more free time than everyone else. This is what makes wikipedia so frustrating. People whose sole credentials are having time to edit articles boss everyone else. Learn to discuss things with adults, please.

(ec) Indeed a look at English-language coverage reveals that the alleged 2008 incident is sourced to Russian press (Times Online: "Russian media reports said he had once become angry with a pilot who refused to land in Tbilisi, the Georgian capital, on the grounds that it was unsafe." ). Reuters [6] does not reveal its sources ("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..."). Perhaps the right course of action is to research Polish press, especially media opposed to Kaczynski. The ultimate source, if it existed, had to be on board the Polish plane (the Georgian controllers and anyone listening to the airwaves could not hear the President, could they?). NVO (talk) 05:35, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Not only "the media opposed to Kaczynski" covered the case in Poland, it was very loud with all media. I do not know if providing sources in Polish is of great use for anyone, but I can do that, especially that the case was brought up again this weekend (see for example Gazeta Wyborcza) . The pilot of the plane was ordered by Kaczynski to change the flight path and land in Tibilisi, where it was not safe, and there were recordings of the talk (Kaczynski said an officer pilot should not be "fearful and apprehensive"). The presidents of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania were ON BOARD of the plane, not to meet Kaczynski in Georgia. The pilot refused to detour into the war zone, and Kaczynski officially wanted to dismiss him for not following his orders. A formal inquiry ensued, it proved the pilot was right not to obey the president (formally head of military in Poland, but on board of the plane the captain is ultimately in charge), and the pilot was awarded a medal.

Excellent work 212.180.168.196 - the more sources we have the easier it is to sent the vandals packing. Most of these conspiracy freaks work always in the same modus: take the article piece by piece and claim each piece is wrong! naturally they have no sources to prove it and as long as serious editors don't start to look for sources to dispute such ridiculous claims, they continue with their nonsense. Well- thanks to your source this one vandal is now done for! "A few weeks after the incident, Captain Pietruczuk was awarded the silver medal for his contribution to national defense by the Chief of Defence Bogdan Klich, for "due process and a sense of responsibility for the safety of the four presidents on board (besides Kaczynski on the plane were the presidents of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania)." (quote from: Gazeta Wyborcza) Anytime you see more vandalism, please help find us a source (preferably Polish) to counter it. thanks, --noclador (talk) 08:36, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Comment re please help find us a source (preferably Polish), as this is the English language Wikipedia, English language sources are preferred. However, it is accepted that in these sort of incidents, sources in the relevant language to the incident are more likely to be available. If an English language source can be found to verify the Polish language source, then that should be added (it may be better to add as an additional ref rather than outright replacement). Anyway, as said above, well done, 212! Mjroots (talk) 08:42, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

@ Mjroots: I appreciate that life in Kent must be hard with all them foreigners coming in thru the Chunnel an' all that, but this is Wikipedia (i.e. an encyclopaedia), not the Evening Standard, and therefore *original* sources must be given preference over translations or second hand accounts. Maybe this particular article simply lies outside your area of competence. Advice to budding editors: Don't spread yourself too thinly - at scholarpedia they certainly don't. 88.207.166.233 (talk) 11:02, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

OK. let's all please remember WP:AGF. As the starter of this article, I don't think it is outside my area of competence. I've got quite a bit of experience in editing aircraft accident articles, and would point you to BOAC Flight 712 as an example of that. The political side is outside my area of expertise, and I've not done much work here in that area. You will note that I wasn't advocating the removal of non-English sources in favour of English ones. What I was advocating was the use of English language sources to strengthen the non-English ones where they are available. It is perfectly acceptable to have a complete article with no English-language sources if there are none available in English, as with De Rat, IJlst, which I created today. BTW, please remember to sign your post with four tildes (like this ~~~~) so that the software can convert it into a signature. This enables editors to know who they are replying to. Mjroots (talk) 11:08, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

To end the debatte about the flight to Tbilisi: the response by the Polish Defense Minister Bogdan Klich to a inquiry by the speaker of the Sejm regarding the accident and the subsequent awarding of a medal to the pilot of the presidential plane. So much to the above vandals claim that this event is just a Russian fiction! EOD now on this topic! --noclador (talk) 15:07, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

In 2008 the president gave the pilot a direct order as commander of Poland's armed forces to land, according to the pilot's version of the the event. According to Kaczynski's version, he told higher ranking officers on board the plane to order the pilot to land and they gave him a written order. Still, the pilot refused! To my mind this shows that at least at that time the chief pilot of Polish "Air Force One" was not easily susceptible to pressure. Of course we can only speculate what happened in this crash. Nevertheless, to my mind the previous incident is an argument against the idea that pressure on the pilot was a contributing factor to taking the decision to land. [7]Sourcelat0r (talk) 15:15, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

The 2008 pilot is Grzegorz Pietruczuk. The 2010 pilot was Arkadiusz Protasiuk. --Illythr (talk) 15:33, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Yes, it should be made clear they were different people, so we don't know whether the 2010 pilot had the same strength of character. Still, the 2008 incident was useful in clarifying the procedures, affirmed that the pilot is the ultimate, unquestioned arbiter in any decisions that affect the safety of the plane, and that not following the president's wishes if they impact safety will not negatively affect the pilot's professional career. In short, it made it less likely that the pilot would be negatively affected by the pressure of VIPs on board in the future. Sourcelat0r (talk) 15:44, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

In any case, it seems now that the pilot was making a first attempt to land, rather than being forced into repeated manoeuvres – "having a look" to see what things are like is hardly unusual. Physchim62 (talk) 15:49, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

I've seen that reference to pressure on the pilot in several sources, including the major U.S. news agencies. Right now it is just a theory and is labeled as such in both news publications and this article. (N419BH (talk) 00:55, 13 April 2010 (UTC))

Katyn Massacre

The See also link Katyn massacre is way off topic. Suggest its removal. --Haruth (talk) 04:22, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

I disagree. The crash happened while they were inbound to a commemoration of the event. EVERY single media story that discusses the crash, mentions this fact, either directly or not. Here's the latest BBC story: "...their jet crashed en route to a war memorial service in Russia" from http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8614685.stm —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.12.178.189 (talk) 04:51, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

removed the link to Katyn in the "See also" section, as it is already linked within the article itself and the "See also" section is for similar, but not directly related articles. --noclador (talk) 04:54, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

I disagree with the removal from the see also section. Such sections frequently include links to articles that are relevant to all or a significant part of the article, even if they are not directly related and even if they have been linked in the text. Thryduulf (talk) 08:56, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

The see also section is intended to harbor links that are relevant somehow, but not included into article text. However, the Katyn massacre is linked to from the first paragraph of the article - it's really hard to miss. Therefore, a link in the see also section is not needed. --Illythr (talk) 11:40, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

leave the link there. that was the reason why they travel there at the first place. so yes, it is important!

Katyn masacre and this are VERY related. 71.99.95.93 (talk) 01:01, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Agree, "see also" is for similar topics. The Katyn Massacre is already linked in the article; placing it in "see also" is redundant and unnecessary (N419BH (talk) 01:18, 13 April 2010 (UTC))

Agree it shouldn't be there for the same reasons as the above editor. RutgerH (talk) 11:26, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

ILS/NDB/GPS etc

Its about the degree of precision.

An NDB "let down" is not as precise see:

http://stoenworks.com/Tutorials/IFR,%20NDB%20%28ADF%29%20Approaches.html

They flew into a tree, not into the NDB tower. 24.23.197.43 (talk) 07:18, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

They first hit an antenna, and afterwards -- the plane was too low and off balance -- they hit the trees. See the graphic here.

(red dotted line is actual flight, black solid line the correct flight path) (for non-Poles: Gazeta Wyborcza is one of the two most relaible newspapers in Poland, apart from Rzeczpospolita www.rp.pl)

Number of landing attempts

According to an interview with one of the airport's dispatcher, who was working at the time of the crash, the plane only attempted to land once. [8] _{Óðinn ☭☆ talk} 08:49, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

I agree, apparently the aircraft circled the aerodrome three times, and crashed on the first attempt to land. It did not make four approaches and abort three times. Mjroots (talk) 08:55, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

See this section. --Illythr (talk) 11:41, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

And also this animation from Gazeta Wyborcza, which says the same thing. Physchim62 (talk) 12:09, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Display of aircraft type

I did change the display of the aircraft type from Tupolev Tu-154M to Tupolev Tu-154M, which I think looks neater. The change has been reverted. So, in the spirit of WP:BRD, I'd like to ask which is the preferred method of display here? Obviously I prefer the latter. Mjroots (talk) 09:00, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Tupolev Tu-154M is clearly better, having the M in black looks silly.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 09:05, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Agreed. Thryduulf (talk) 10:13, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

MISTAKE uncorrected

as already discussed on the talk page and already corrected in the introduction, "четвёртый разворот" (literally "fourth turn"), means "final turn" in English terminology. the Russian technical term has consequently been mistranslated by several media outlets.

The article, despite having gotten rid of the mistake in the introduction, repeats it in the body text ("Russian state television reported that the jet crashed about 200 metres (660 ft) short of the runway on its FOURTH ATTEMP TO LAND in heavy fog.") [emphasis added]. All Russian sources that I've read and / or heard / watched spoke of the "четвёртый разворот" (again, literally "fourth turn" but being properly translated as "final turn"). And then all the English-language media speak of a "fourth attempt". It's obviously, as already discusses above (look at a previous talk point), a widely disseminated translation mistake.

So it should be corrected. (Because here it's obviously a 'false friend')

Seems to have been fixed now. Physchim62 (talk) 12:20, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

That's because I fixed it . Mjroots (talk) 12:23, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

One more if I could be so bold...

• Paragraph 2 states after the pilots attempted a go-around
• Paragraph 3 states ... he decided to attempt one landing... The plane crashed in this attempt...

Which one is now accepted as accurate? --Haruth (talk) 12:36, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

• Para 3 is correct. Mjroots (talk) 12:43, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

•  Fixed Mjroots (talk) 12:45, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

There's also the problem of the distance from the runway: the crash site "varies" from 200 to 1500 metres from the end of the runway. The animation from Gazeta Wyborcza seems to but ground impact about 1000 metres from the runway, which fits with the satellite pictures which show a wooded area there, but it would be touching on WP:OR to stick that in the article without asking for comments. Physchim62 (talk) 12:44, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Wrong - at 1 minute in the video the Polish text reads that the "airplane wreckage falls 200m in front of the airport" - the 1000m mark is where the plane hit the antenna! --noclador (talk) 12:49, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Also the video says 0:19min that "Before the landing approach the pilot performed three laps of the airport at an altitude of several hundred meters," (the rest of the sentence I do not get) so the plane circled the airport 3 times before attempting to land. --noclador (talk) 12:57, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict)Ooops, sorry, yes, that's my mistake, the Gazeta Wyborcza animation shows the plane flying over the road to Smolensk and crashing on the airbase side, which makes it 200–300 m based on the animation. As GW have real live journalists on site, I'm inclined to believe their geography! Physchim62 (talk) 12:58, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Distance information still unclear.

• Paragraph 2 of the lead section states "fell into the trees 1.5 kilometres (0.9 mi) from the airfield"
• Paragraph 2 of the accident section states "The plane crashed in this attempt 200 m (650 feet) short of the runway" and further indicates the NDB mast to be 1km from the end of the runway.

--Haruth (talk) 02:44, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Wreckage is spread over a wide swath. Plane made initial contact with trees 1.5 km away, bulk of the fuselage came to a stop much closer to the runway. Sourcelat0r (talk) 03:21, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

And so the sourced conspiracy theories begin...

In March, Georgian Imedi TV broadcast a hoax report on a Russian invasion of Georgia; the report of which included the scenario of Lech's aircraft being blown up, and killing him. It should be noted that the hoax report is believed by the Georgian opposition to be the handy work of Saakashvili. This has led the usual suspects in Russia to come out and claim that this crash was an assassination, and pointed to the Georgian propaganda broadcast as evidence of some Nostradamus-like vision. Here's an article by Valeria Novodvorskaya, one of the usual conspiracy theorists; she doesn't really have anything to say, except claiming that every Russo-Polish dispute in the past is evidence that the Russian state is behind this. She also called the screening of Katyn on Russian TV, "a piece of cheese in a mousetrap". What's the saying about opinions and everyone having one? Expect more insightful theories such as this in the coming days and weeks -- how many of them get included in the article, well that is up to editorial discretion I guess. --Russavia ^{I'm chanting as we speak} 12:54, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

So what do you suggest? Hobartimus (talk) 12:56, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Conspiracy theories should only be mentioned if they are reported by a WP:RS other than the source that gave the theory in the first place. Otherwise, they should be kept off the article. Available evidence so far indicates pilot error, nothing more. Mjroots (talk) 12:59, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

I despise conspiracy theories such as this as much as the next person; particularly when they come from the fringes of political society, as this has. But Grani.ru is a reliable source, in so far as it is reliable for reporting the opinion of the person who offered it; who is actually notable (usually for her polemical statements). Grani.ru used to be owned by Boris Berezovsky (anti-Kremlin guru), and is now owned by Leonid Nevzlin‎ (Yukos-connected, and is now a fugitive from Russia living in Israel); and it tends to report much anti-Kremlin opinion and reports. I would expect this to be discussed on Echo Moskvy at some point. --Russavia ^{I'm chanting as we speak} 13:17, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

I bet the next thing they say (if questioned along those lines) would be that Amelia Earhart had been shot down by Japanese Zeros and held prisoner in a cave on some desert island, and then sent back to the US in 1945 under another name! Any media owned (even formerly) by Berezovsky is not to be trusted in the absense of corroborating evidence, period! 24.23.197.43 (talk) 04:37, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Eurgh! Who gives a rats...!! Conspiracy theories? Go start the page at Conspiracies surrounding the 2010 Polish air force crash. Let's try to stick to the known, recorded, verifiable facts here, please. --Haruth (talk) 13:57, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

This section has no place here: who can possibly believe that a fictional television programme is a reliable source! I have removed this section twice now, but Russavia (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) insists on reinserting it: this is disruptive editing. Physchim62 (talk) 15:56, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

I disagree, this section is discussing whether or not conspiracy theories should or should not be in the article. It is here to garner consensus on the question. Thus it is in accordance with talk page guidelines as it is aimed at improving the article by either a) including sourced info or b) keeping conspiracycruft out of the article, per consensus. Mjroots (talk) 16:24, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

I think Russavia means to warn us that speculation has started in notable media (in Russia, at least), which is going to help the vandals/fringe POV-pushers here. --Illythr (talk) 16:26, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

No-one one has claimed here that a fictional programme is a reliable source. However, a reliable source has printed opinion from a notable person, in which the claim is made that the depiction of the blowing up of the P.P.s aircraft in a hoax report is the "first sign" that the Russian state is behind this crash, and hence L.K.'s assassination. Therein lies the difference. Get it? I think that Mjroots and Illythr do. --Russavia ^{I'm chanting as we speak} 16:30, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

I have left a message at User_talk:Physchim62#Don.27t_remove_other_people.27s_comments_from_article_talk_pages to advise against the removal of comments from talk pages. Let me make it perfectly clear, I am not arguing for the inclusion of this conspiracy theory into the article; far from it. But as has been evidenced on this talk page already, there have been unsourced editorial opinions on what/who may or may not be behind the crash. These comments have been removed from the talk page (and rightly so). But here is a sourced opinion (as whacked out as it is to an objective person) from a notable person in what is a reliable source. It is only early days, but one can only expect other's to jump on the bandwagon. Welcome to Russian-topics on Wikipedia! From my own editing history, I have encountered, the failure to clean one's car being construed by some Russian and lots of Western media as a State-backed assassination attempt, a kiss on a boy's belly in a photo-op being used to accuse that person of paedophilia, pilot error in a plane crash being construed as an assassination because the subject apparently knew that Putin's real parents were Georgian; and it isn't restricted to those who one would usually pass off as being kooky, but even Pete Souza (White House photographer) claims this is Putin. The world is full of conspiracy theories, and the conspiracy theorists know that anything to do with Russia is good business sense (sells print!). I am not in the least bit surprised that Novodvorskaya is the first to really make her conspiracy theory known - note in her article she claims that everyone from Putin to Aviakor is to blame for the crash; everyone but the pilot. And more will follow, and they will get exposure in the media. And people will come to insert such things into the article, and they will use valid arguments such as WP:CENSOR, WP:NOT, WP:V, etc in order to include the theories into the article, and may even note (and perhaps rightly so) that it was pilot error, or whatever, is still but a theory. And even if, and when, the investigation is complete, some will still not believe anything which has the words "official" and "Russian" in the same sentence. At the moment, Novodvorskaya's opinion is WP:UNDUE/WP:FRINGE for the article, but given time, conspiracy theories such as that are going to be more notable. Now do people get what is being said? :) --Russavia ^{I'm chanting as we speak} 16:30, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

It is still early days, and none of the proposed conspiracy theories has picked up the same iconic status as the grassy knoll. It was inevitable that some conspiracy theories would emerge, but there is a need for caution unless they receive coverage in a range of reliable sources. Otherwise, there could be issues with WP:UNDUE.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 16:39, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

From the information available in the medial it seems that it was a combination of 'bad weather, trees getting in the way, human error, and possibly an intervention to get the plane down and the ceremony going' (and possibly some negative emotions given the context). And - who would benefit from such an action, if deliberate ('creating a scandal'/'revealing inappropriate activity' would have less negative impact if a connection were revealed. Jackiespeel (talk) 16:58, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

A specific example

A Polish MP has claimed that the crash was engineered by Russia. This was reported in the Daily Mail in the UK. The addition of that info was reverted with the claim that the Daily Mail is not a WP:RS.

If we are to have a section in the article, entries would need to be carefully worded to make it clear that it is speculation. In this case, the entry could read something like - The Daily Mail reported that Polish MP Artur Gorski claimed that the crash was engineered by Russia.

Comments on the inclusion or exclusion of this example welcome. Let's try and establish some sort of consensus because this issue is not going to go away. Mjroots (talk) 18:54, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

I should also note that communication difficulties have already been discussed elsewhere in the article, and that is why I removed your the text. Nevertheless, the article itself is rather odious and I was reacting to that. My edit comment should have been more clear in this respect.

Anyway, there are plenty of more reliable Polish and Russian sources giving information about the crash, there is really no need at all to drag Daily Mail in here. Sourcelat0r (talk) 19:02, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

It wasn't me that added the text. I merely brought the issue up here for discussion. At the moment, I'm neutral on whether or not such claims should be included. If they are to be included, the wording needs to be clear that these are theories and not fact. It also needs to be clear who said what and where what was said was reported. Mjroots (talk) 19:08, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Comments by an obscure Polish backbencher are not relevant here. There will be plenty of conspiracy theories about this flight, but it's too early to put them in at this point. We don't have any obligation to put trash in Wikipedia. Sourcelat0r (talk) 18:59, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

If Artur Górski said this, it would be best to find the original Polish quote. Not to put too fine a point on it, Artur Górski appears to be a bit of a fruitcake (every country has them).--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 19:02, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

We have no obligation to put in a comment by every fruitcake into this article. Sourcelat0r (talk) 19:03, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Here is the story in Polish. There are some abusive comments to go with it.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 19:18, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for bringing this up, I was going to. Sourcelat0r says "Comments by an obscure Polish backbencher are not relevant here." But at the same time, comments by the very same obscure nationalist Polish backbencher also created a diplomatic incident when he referred to Obama as the "black messiah of the left". We have to remember that WP:NOT#MEMORIAL - i.e. Wikipedia is not a memorial, as much as one wants to memorialise the subject/s. However, at the moment, again like the example I presented, it is WP:UNDUE for the article; due to the sheer amount of sources out there, the amount which cover boneheaded comments like the one above and the example I presented, is due to be quite low, so that UNDUE will surely come into play. But hey, the media is the media, and they lap up crap like the two examples that have been presented so far, so there surely will be some notability to comments like those, but at the moment, it doesn't exist; at least not within the confines of the sheer wealth of information which is already out there on the subject. --Russavia ^{I'm chanting as we speak} 19:31, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Political disasters

Apart from this plane crash and the 1984 Brighton hotel bombing are there any more examples of incidents involving the deaths of a number of political and other administrative leaders? (Likely to be too few and too disparate in nature to create a WP list). Jackiespeel (talk) 16:56, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

I think a list of accidents of this type would be a short list, but the term incidents is vague and might include incidents like the Nuremberg Trials and the Stalin purges. Comet Tuttle (talk) 17:15, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Should have been 'in a single event.' Jackiespeel (talk) 17:23, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

There was also the 1996 Croatia USAF CT-43 crash which killed U.S. Commerce Secretary Ron Brown. Wackywace (talk) 18:38, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

The crash of Zia ul-Haq's plane at Multan, Pakistan in 1988 comes to mind. There were lots of military top brass on board apart from the dictator himself, and under obscure circumstances the plane became instable, flew into a mountain side and exploded - most likely someone had either hijacked the aircraft or fixed something up with the stabilization systems and/or engines - but some inquirers said everyone on board had been made unconscious by gas minutes before ground impact. The crash meant the end of Zia's regime and the first return of Benazir Bhutto.

Also, in 1712, the son and grandson of Louis XIV and their wives died, probably of measles. There was no effective treatment at the time, so France was left with a yawning gap in the succession at a very critical time and an infant boy - the future Louis XV - to succeed the old king three years later. Not a insgle violent event, but they were near each other and were put to bed by some kind of mutual contagiation.

See also Stockholm Bloodbath - in 1520, the Danish king, Christian the Tyrant, and a previously deposed archbishop had near a hundred men put to death in public over two days in the main city square of Stockholm. Key persons among the killed belonged to the Swedish high nobility and were allies of former de facto kings of Sweden, who had opposed the Danish monarch; two bishops were decapitated too. having been "part of the cabal". Out in the countryside, monks were killed too. At the time, Sweden, Denmark and Norway were united in a derelict personal union so Christian had claims to be the rightful king; he had actually just been crowned king of Sweden and held banquets with some of the people hwho were then ringed, tried for high treason and whose heads were then chopped off.

The article about that here on WP is not great, it sounds 19th century, I'm planning to revise it from modern historical writing, but there's not much doubt it was a determined attempt to wipe out a part of the political elite which Christian felt might oppose him. Ironically, it provoked a new surge of resistance and the final coming apart of the union. Strausszek (talk) 23:35, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

§ § Don't think anyone has brought this one up yet. You guys might be too young to remember it, Assassination of Juvénal Habyarimana and Cyprien Ntaryamira from April 6, 1994. Which led to or triggered at least the Rwandan Genocide. One 'crash' 2 presidents of neignbouring African countries dead! --220.101.28.25 (talk) 00:20, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Let's exclude outright coup d'etats, revolutions and events that were directly part of a war or the list would become too long. Any self-respecting military coup kills off a number of leading men from the earlier regime (the Zia crash wasn't foillowed up by anyone stepping forward and grabbing the reins immediately afterwards, so it wasn't a coup although it removed him and fatally weakened his regime). Pinochet and Saddam for instance both had many leading men killed on the day they took power or immediately after. Btw didn't Caligula massacre a lot of senators? Strausszek (talk) 01:22, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Seriously, adding all this into the article about an air crash is not the greatest idea. In fact, I think it's terrible. I suggest we impale it. --Illythr (talk) 01:52, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

I don't think the OP's idea was to set the list up here. Seems more like he/she was suggesting to start an article on its own listing this kind of multi-leader/top-ranking-persons fatalities incidents. The idea sounds okay to me. Strausszek (talk) 01:59, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Airfield terrain

The western approach to the Smolensk airfield is interesting in that the ground along it slopes rather sharply upward. Along the 3 km straight line from the edge of the airfield the elevation goes through from 211 m to 255 m. (if you take 4.5 km distance, it goes down to 183 m). In other words, the airfield is on a 44 m high hill (or even 73 m, depending on how far from the airfield you measure), from the pilot's standpoint. If the pilots were not keeping track of this and did not climb sufficiently, they could have been too low on approach, and thus clipped the trees and crashed. Various Polish sources are reporting that the landing path was perfect in alignment with the runway, but 10-15 m lower than it should have been.

This data is from Google Earth. I wonder if it would fit within Wikipedia original research restrictions to make a graph of the terrain profile using Google Earth elevation data and upload it to Commons. Any thoughts? Sourcelat0r (talk) 18:48, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Such graph has been posted here, not sure if this qualified as a good source though: http://www.radioscanner.ru/forum/topic38398-38.html

Thanks. This animation is another way to look at this. It would seem that indeed the slope before the runway was not taken into account by the pilot for some reason. animation. I guess we can wait until reliable sources confirm this theory before making the graph to illustrate. Sourcelat0r (talk) 20:22, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Language/silence confusion

According to major Fiszer, well-known Polish military pilot, who actually knows what he is talking, there are different radio procedures in East/NATO. For NATO tower continuously reads information to the pilot, who remains silent. For East tower reads information and awaits repetition from pilot. Alleged "Poor Russian command" and lack of read-back may stem from the fact that tower expected a different reaction from the pilot. Source (in Polish): here

Error in Cause

Wiki should list cause as undetermined, suspicious.

To go along with the MSM lies is not exactly encyclopedic.

Vote?

88.16.183.146 (talk) 21:07, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

The cause remains as under investigation until such time as an official report is released. Expect this to be a minimum of a month before we can reasonably expect a preliminary report. It could be 2 years or more before a final report is released. There is WP:NORUSH. Mjroots (talk) 21:10, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

This is the same troll who has already been blocked.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 21:12, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

No ' vote', wp:consensus ! This was not even 3 days ago (≈66 hours). Investigation is barely started. Cause Unknown , so far. Conspiracy theories in the article? No thanks! Concur 100% with Mjroots--220.101.28.25 (talk) 00:50, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Polish pilot knew excellent Russian and landed on the airfield three days before

Article: The interview with the air traffic controller suggested that at some point during the flight the Polish pilots stopped responding to the flight communication, allegedly due to their insufficient command of Russian, and the demanding landing conditions Response: Polish Plz correct. Pilot Tu-154M government, which crashed near Smolensk, knew well the Russian language. He knew very well the airport - so the captain Arkady Ivanovich Protasiuku say his superiors and colleagues of the 36th specpułku.

This is a response to suggestions from Smolensk flight controller, which appeared in Russian media. He said that the captain Protasiuk did not deal with the Russian language. Controller itself also had a pilot deal, due to bad weather landing at another airport.

Here one of the pilots 154, Col. Bartosz Stroiński, denies the information about inadequate language skills of the master Protasiuka. He died along with pilot flew to Smolensk three days before the disaster, Prime Minister Donald Tusk.

- Arek spoke perfect Russian. Ideally, both maintained correspondence in Polish, Russian and English. April 7, when we flew there, no one reported any comments - added Colonel Stroiński. --KrysiaSt (talk) 23:28, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Pechyorsk or Smolensk?

Does anyone know whether the site where the crash occured belongs to Pechyorsk or to Smolensk? I was unable to find a political map showing the borders between cities of the region around Smolensk. 92.231.208.12 (talk) 03:28, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Edit request from Bradtaylor, 13 April 2010

{{editsemiprotected}} It might be better to change "Pilot ignoring advice from air traffic control" to something like "Air traffic control advice ignored by pilot" to sound more like a paragraph title.

Bradtaylor (talk) 05:21, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Sound good to me.

 Done and thanks! ^Avicenna_sis @ 05:39, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Non-Directional Beacon (NDB) antenna or a tree

What did plane hit antenna or a tree?? Elendal (talk)

The animated reconstruction here has the plane circling the runway several times, then striking the beacon on the landing approach before hitting trees. However, this will need to be confirmed by the official investigation, which may take a while.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 10:33, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Oh Really?

Large swathes of the talk page have been deleted. Now, I understand there are wacky things tossed around in here, however I was under the impression that wholesale deletion of sections in talk pages was heavily frowned upon...? I also like how my comment about Wikileaks being both unaffiliated with wikipedia.org and also being notoriously agenda oriented and biased has been removed. Hmm. Weird. It was not out of context, as it was in refernce to another editor claiming they were waiting for Wikileaks to release something on the subject. But I digress. Don't delete chunks of talk pages. Jersey John (talk) 10:58, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

The "deleted" material can be found in Talk:2010 Polish Air Force Tu-154 crash/Archive 1. The page was archived because it exceeded 100k and was too large per WP:SIZE.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 11:02, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Guess what? They are magically not in the archived section either. But then I didn't expect they would be. You're good at your work, Goebbels. Jersey John (talk) 11:24, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

I did not archive the talk page, and please assume good faith. The comments may be in the talk page history somewhere, but may have been removed if someone thought that they were comments in breach of WP:NOTAFORUM.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 11:34, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Translation: YOU did not want them there so YOU left them out. I see. Thanks for clearing it up. Jersey John (talk) 11:38, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Issue with "similar accidents"

There is a mistake in the mentioned section. The aircraft accident in Mirosławiec in 2008 was by all means Polish - just take a look into its article. Therefore I request for correction by someone with the rights to edit this article.

Easy job

Easy job

Just to point out the obvious. This is a military airport normally equipped with fog making machines and everything else like electronic, radar and GPS jamming equipment.

Prior to planned landing most of the surrounding landscape has been covered by thick fog, with the exception of the runway. The plane approaches, the pilot hears the weather warning but sees the runway clearly, makes 3 rounds around the airport and decides the weather is good enough. In the right moment the fog making machines are turned on to full power.

The russians have a long and impressive history of weathermaking. Weather was fixed for the Olympic games, each year for the military parade and for every other important opportunity. It would be surprising if it was not fixed for an important state visit.

No conspiracy theories required, just one man who controls the fog machines - everyone else sees just fog. The Russian army is full of officers who feel very bitter about Katyn and the official Russian course.

Yes, almost as easy as producing unverified crap like this theory.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 11:37, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

See, THAT is something that no one would miss from a talk page... lol...Jersey John (talk) 11:39, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

There is definitely a lot that needs to be revealed. I think you may be on to something there. Although I still think its more likely that the Russians used somone on the inside, perhaps ZOG related, to plant a bomb. 88.16.171.237 (talk) 11:41, 13 April 2010 (UTC)