Air crash report strains Russia-Polish ties

Air crash report strains Russia-Polish ties

By Jan Cienski in Warsaw

Published: January 12 2011 12:34 | Last updated: January 12 2011 12:34

Polish-Russian ties have come under renewed strain following the release of the final report by Russia into the causes of last April’s air crash disaster that killed Poland’s president.

The report, released on Wednesday, placed the blame squarely on the Polish pilots. It found that they violated safety procedures and were under pressure to land despite awful weather conditions, because of the importance of the flight to Lech Kaczynski, the president, who was killed with 95 others.

“The presence of the air force commander, the president and top officials on the flight by itself created psychological pressure,” said Alexei Morozov, head of the technical committee investigating the crash.

But Jerzy Miller, Poland’s interior minister, said Poland was not satisfied with the Russian response to Polish queries and added that “both sides were equally badly prepared for the flight”.

Jaroslaw Kaczynski, the leader of Poland’s opposition Law and Justice party and twin brother of Lech Kaczynski, said the report “makes a mockery of Poland”.

Donald Tusk, the Polish prime minister, called an initial version of the Russian report “unacceptable”, and the Poles sent a 148-page request for more information, largely dealing with the state of the airport, but most were not answered.

The spat over Wednesday’s report could set back the fragile detente between Russia and Poland. A rapprochement between the two countries gained strength following the shock of the air disaster, but has come under strain as Poland increasingly questioned the Russian-led investigation. Even the timing of the report caused tensions, with the Russians announcing it only on Tuesday, leaving the Poles and a holidaying Mr Tusk scrambling to prepare a response.

However, both countries have invested in better ties and are unlikely to allow them to collapse.

Moscow’s warming of relations with Poland was prompted in large part by a realisation that it would not be able to improve ties with the European Union without doing so.

Poland’s credibility in the EU also rests in part on not being seen as hysterically anti-Russian. Bilateral trade has also soared since the thaw, with Polish exports to Russia up by 39 per cent to €4.6bn ($6.2bn) in the first nine months of last year, while imports from Russia rose 49 per cent to €12.3bn.

While the Poles recognise that a large part of the responsibility rests largely with the pilots, they want to include any errors by air traffic controllers. They also argue about the nature of the flight, saying Russian controllers had the authority to forbid the landing.

Russia and Poland in major scandal over Lech Kaczynski's death

13.01.2011 02:57

In Moscow, the findings on the causes of the crash of the Tu-154 near Smolensk that caused the death of Polish President Lech Kaczynski and another 95 people have been released. According to Russian experts, the situation is clear. The main culprits of the tragedy were the Poles. The content of the document is a real blow to Poland.

The text of the report was prepared by the Interstate Aviation Committee (IAC) the day before and sent to the Polish side. It is worth mentioning that none of the senior Polish officials were present at the official release of the document in Moscow. The press conference was attended only by the head of IAC and representatives of the Polish Embassy in Russia. It is hardly likely that they were pleased to hear the results.

According to chairman of IAC Tatyana Anodina, the immediate cause of the accident were not the Russian flight managers, as the Polish side tried to prove many times, but the decision of the president's crew not to go to the alternate airport. It turns out that the talks of Polish politicians about President Kaczynski being killed by "cursed Russia" is no more than fruits of sick imagination.

"During the flight, the crew of the Tu-154 was repeatedly informed of meteorological conditions at the airport of destination, the minimum requirements set by air traffic control and Belarus' Smolensk North airport, as well as the crew of the Polish Yak-40 aircraft, which had previously landed at Smolensk airport. Despite this, the crew of the Tu-154 has chosen not to go to the alternate airport. This fact can be considered the beginning of the emergency situation in flight," Anodina said.

"The crew requested the so-called trial landing in the actual weather conditions, (which were) much worse than the established minimums for landing both for the crew, the airport and the aircraft," noted Anodina. According to her, because weather conditions were below the established ones, the pilots were instructed to go to the second round. They confirmed it. Yet, then the crew decided to land again. The decision has proven fatal.

It is hardly likely that Poland will like the conclusion. Systemic failures in the preparation of the crew and flight operations organization have played their role in the tragedy. However, the presence in the cockpit of an outsider, Air Force Commander of Poland Andrzej Blasik, has played a much greater role in the fact that the crew made the costly decision. Back in spring some Polish media outlets discussed the fact that he was putting pressure on the crew. This assumption has been confirmed.

"It was the conclusion of the flight experts and aviation psychologists, including Polish ones, that the presence of the Polish Air Force Commander in the cockpit up to the moment of the collision with the ground exerted a psychological pressure on the decision of the commander to continue the decline under the circumstances of undue risk, with a dominant purpose of landing no matter what," Anodina stressed.

In addition, another detail was revealed that characterizes the late Blasik in the most unfavorable light. "As a result of forensic examination, ethyl alcohol concentration of 0.6 ppm was found in the blood of the Air Force Chief," Anodina said. It turns out that the crew was pressed by the intoxicated senior military official who could have been following the instructions of a more senior passenger.

This brings the memory of scandalous statements made by a deputy Sejm Jan Palikota last summer. According to his theory, before climbing aboard, President Kaczynski had consumed a fair share of alcohol. The report prepared by IAC did not say a word about the condition of the Polish leader. However, there is a wide area for speculation. It is unlikely that Blasik was the only passenger who was drinking.

The main part of the IAC's document was handed over to Poland before the New Year, and then Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk made it clear that his experts were not satisfied with the results of Russian findings. He did not go into details, but now it is obvious what the Poles did not like. The situation on board the presidential plane was far from ideal. There were no signs of conspiracy against Kaczynski.

However, the fact that the Poles were flying to commemorate the Polish officers shot at Katyn looks too symbolic. Radically-minded Russophobes in Poland will most certainly insist that the IAC report does not contain a single grain of truth, that the Russian authorities have decided to get rid of their enemy and Polish patriot, that they wanted to cover the tracks either of a plot against Kaczynski, or (at best) the errors of their dispatchers.

Given the fact that in the fall of this year Poland will hold the elections to the Sejm, there likely be numerous speculations on the subject of findings of the IAC and new anti-Russian statements. How the disclosure of the causes of the disaster will affect the Russian-Polish relations? Experts Gregory Amnuel and Bogdan Bezpalko shared their comments in an interview with Pravda.ru.

"This is actually a criminal tradition - to write off what happened to the ones who are no longer alive," said the executive director of the International Club "Open Dialogue" Gregory Amnuel. "Such way of thinking is popular among a certain part of the Russian society. Some people are traditionally trying to find a scapegoat.

As for Poland itself, the public opinion in the country is split. Some Poles believe the disaster in Smolensk was a tragic accident. Others strongly disagree. They point out that during the investigation into the incident many Polish and international laws have been violated. Therefore, the IAC's conclusions cannot be trusted.

Based on the existing international law, Russia was supposed to hand over all evidence of this tragedy, including the wreckage of the plane, to Poland. This has not been done right away. I suppose that the discussion of the events in Smolensk that took place on April 10, 2010 will continue for a very long time".

"Whatever the conclusions of experts on the disaster are, the accident will forever live in the memory of the Russian and Polish people, and it will always be the basis for the creation of myths directed against Russia," said an expert on Polish history Bogdan Bezpalko. "Even if it was, for example, proved that the drunk commander in chief was beating the pilots, forcing them to land near Smolensk, it would not change anything.

In any case, the crash of number one plane in Poland will always be considered a conspiracy against Poland's political elite. This situation will be corrected with time only. As evident from the story with the Katyn affair, several decades must pass before the passions subside.

But even under the best case scenario, the attitude of the significant part of Polish society cannot be changed. Even if the new authorities in Poland are sensible politicians who understand that Russia is closer than the U.S., many Poles will anyway look askance at our country.

This is not because sensible politicians are a minority in Poland. It is because anti-Russian myths are hammered into the heads of many members of Polish society who will always regard Poland as a "border guard" that protects Europe against the aggressive Russia."

Sergei Balmasov