Pilots of the plane that crashed in April killing Poland's president and scores of other public figures indirectly communicated with President Lech Kaczynski as they tried to decide whether the plane should attempt a landing at a fog-shrouded airport in Smolensk, Russia, or divert to another landing field, according to a transcript of cockpit conversations.
About 15 minutes before the plane crashed, Mariusz Kazana, the Polish foreign ministry’s protocol chief, entered the cockpit and was told by the captain that a landing at Smolensk would be impossible because of limited visibility, saying that "in the current conditions, we won’t make it." The captain then suggested he would try to land the plane, but if it proved too risky, he asked Mr. Kazana what he should do next.
Mr. Kazana replied: "We have a problem, then," according to the transcript.
Four minutes later, Mr. Kazana told the crew: "There’s no decision yet from the president about what to do next." No further conversation between the crew and Mr. Kazana was recorded.
The transcript also showed the pilots ignored repeated automated warnings that they were about to hit the ground and appeared to recognize only in the last seconds of the doomed flight that they would crash.
Mr. Kaczynski, his wife, the head of Poland’s central bank and other dignitaries were on their way to attend a ceremony commemorating the deaths of thousands of Polish soldiers killed during World War II at the behest of Soviet dictator Josef Stalin. Their plane slammed into the ground a kilometer short of the runway, killing all aboard.
In the 11 minutes that followed Mr. Kazana’s words on the president’s reaction, the pilots were busy managing the plane’s descent to Smolensk. Then, about one minute before the crash, the plane’s terrain proximity warning system sounded its first automated alarm. But the plane continued to descend as pilots apparently ignored two more warnings as well as automated commands to "pull up."
Thirteen seconds before impact, the co-pilot said the plane would divert to another landing strip. But the aircraft continued its descent, eventually hitting trees, including one that sheared off part of the left wing and sent the plane spinning. The transcript says the last audible sounds from the crew were shouts and curses in Polish.
About 30 minutes before the accident, which occurred at 10:41 a.m. local time, the crew began discussing the unfavorable weather conditions in Smolensk, which had a military airport lacking an instrument-landing system compatible with the one on the presidential jet.
"It’s going to be a nightmare. We won’t see anything," said one unidentified person in the cockpit. Soon after, however, a pilot said: "Well, no, you can see the ground, you can see something. Maybe there won’t be a tragedy."
At 10:17, Captain Arkadiusz Protasiuk said the airplane would divert to another airport if unable to land in Smolensk. Soon after, he received a report from the crew of a Polish military jet that had just landed at the airfield, saying that horizontal visibility there was down to about 50 meters.
"We were able to land at the very last moment. Well, frankly saying, you can try, sure you can," the crew of the plane on the ground told the captain of the president’s jet.
