Kaczynski air crash report blames Polish leaders

 The findings appear to shift some responsibility for the catastrophe onto Polish leaders, a conclusion that is bound to anger Warsaw. The report focused specifically on the commander of Poland’s air force, who, Russian investigators said, had an elevated level of alcohol in his blood when he entered the cockpit before the crash.

The question of blame is highly sensitive, since the crash occurred at a Russian airport against a backdrop of longstanding tension between the two countries. Russia’s outpouring of sympathy after the crash laid the groundwork for reconciliation between Warsaw and Moscow.

It was unclear whether the report would change that. Poland’s Prime Minister Donald Tusk  said last month that parts of it were unacceptable, and Poland responded with a long list of queries and comments.

President Lech Kaczynski and 95 others were on board the aircraft when its pilot attempted to land in thick fog but descended into a wooded area, killing all aboard.
The investigators concluded that the pilot was reluctant to anger Kaczynski by diverting to another airport, said Tatyana Anodina, the head of the Interstate Aviation Committee, a regulatory body which oversees aviation in the former Soviet Union.

A transcript from the plane’s cockpit, showed that the president had given no instructions to the crew. But Anodina said independent experts had determined there was pressure.
“In the event of a diversion to an alternate airfield the commander could have expected a negative reaction from the main passenger,” Anodina said on Wednesday, according to the Interfax news service. She also said that the crew was influenced by the commander of Poland’s air force, Gen Andrzei Blasik, who entered the cockpit shortly before the crash.

Anodina said psychologists—“including those from Poland”—found that Blasik’s presence “had a psychological influence on the commander’s decision to take an unjustified risk by continuing the descent with the predominant goal of landing against the odds.” She said Blasik “had all the information required to resolve an extremely dangerous situation,” suggesting that he should have intervened to stop the landing. She said tests found that Mr. Blasik had an elevated blood-alcohol level at the time of the crash.

A transcript from a cockpit recorder made it clear that the pilot, Arkadiusz Protasiuk, was aware of the thick fog that blanketed the airport in Smolensk. Russian air traffic controllers told the pilot “there are no conditions for landing,” and Mr. Protasiuk thanked them, saying “We’ll make an attempt, but if the weather isn’t good, we’ll leave for a second round.”

He then tried to land, descending with apparent confidence despite warnings from an on-board alarm system.