When I blogged the other day on the post incident issue that pilots face, I did not think that we within days would have an incident where the pilot would be in the public eye on such as scale as has followed the tragic incident in Russia last weekend.
Firstly as somebody closely involved in aviation my feelings and thoughts are with those who have lost loved ones, and also to the people of Poland who have lost a generation of leaders in such a tragic accident.
However my thoughts are particularly with those who had loved ones as the crew, who have to endure both a tragic lost, but an increasing scrutiny of their actions leading up to the incident which may give cause to haunt them for many years to come.
Now I mentioned in my first Pilot hero or zero blog, in the UK as in many other countries the primary action of the investigating authorities is “ To improve aviation safety by determining the causes of air accidents and serious incidents and making safety recommendations intended to prevent recurrence …It is not to apportion blame or liability”, Lets hope that this is not overlooked when the authorities investigate the Russian incident.
What we do know at this stage is that Smolensk’s northern military airfield, was being approached in foggy conditions without the aid of an Instrument Landing System, as the airport has none.
In most of the western world such an approach would be considered unsafe and not commercially viable i.e an operator would not plan on using such an airfield without this most basic of facilities, because an approach in foggy or bad weather conditions would be unsafe.
Secondly we are aware that the aircraft had on board most of the senior military commanders of Poland as well as many other high-ranking officials. What we will never likely to fully know is what pressures this caused the captain and crew to face and if they where overruled or told to attempt to land at all costs.
We as of yet are unaware of what provision had been made in the flight planning process to divert to another airfield, this planning being a fundamental of all flights.
Whilst this incident is a terrible tragedy, what would also be a tragedy is if no lessons where learned and aviation safety in Russia is not improved as a consequence of it.
Roy April 13th 2010
