Sinfest

Vox Raucus · Posted: Sun Apr 11, 2010 4:53 am Post subject:

I maybe misread you, but the focus on "opposition MPs" suggested to me that you on the conspiracy bandwagon.
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Sam the Eagle · Joined: 02 Oct 2006 Posts: 2276 Location: 192.168.0.1

Him · Joined: 10 Jul 2006 Posts: 3959 Location: Strange planet

CTrees · Joined: 21 Jul 2006 Posts: 3620

I'd like to point out that in that situation, the pilot's options are 1.) divert to a different airport 2.) try land there anyway or 3.) eventually crash. I'm assuming there's a reason they didn't divert already (for instance, I have no idea how many airports there are in the Smolensk region), which really leaves only the latter two options. The passengers may have forced the landing, but it would have been forced eventually, anyway.

Him · Joined: 10 Jul 2006 Posts: 3959 Location: Strange planet

Willem · Joined: 09 Jul 2006 Posts: 6306 Location: wasteland style

IIRC, they were told several times to head to another airport. They were at a military airfield and I'm sure that the area had more of those. And civilian airports, obviously. There's a small one 4kms from the air base.
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Fnorder · Guest

The official Russian statement was that Minsk and Moscow were offered. Since both black boxes were found, the reason for not doing like the control tower said will be known shortly, as the boxes record every word in the cabin.

mouse · Joined: 10 Jul 2006 Posts: 15474 Location: under the bed

wow - i heard there were a number of high-ranking government officials on the plane, but this is the first time i've seen the complete list. this really is a devastating blow.
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mouse · Joined: 10 Jul 2006 Posts: 15474 Location: under the bed

they lost some history as well: anna walentynowicz
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bad*lil*kitty · Posted: Tue Apr 13, 2010 9:06 pm Post subject:

I happened to have been in Niles, IL the day the plane crash happened. Which happens to be a HUGE population of Polish people in the Chicagoland area. In fact, we were headed to a famous Polish restaurant in the area for my great aunt's 80th birthday party.

And yes, I'm Polish.

It was definitely a sad day. There was a big memorial at the sculpture that Wojiech Seweryn made for the victims of Katyn. Tons of news vans and the like.

He was on the plane with the president, they're still looking for his body in the wreckage. The memorial was personal to him because his dad died in Katyn.

Definitely a crazy turn of events. We saw so many Polish flags all over the area, and so many red and white flowers laid at the memorial
Really sad. I guess they're saying the reason they were all on the same plane was because they couldn't afford to fly em in separate ones?

Either way, it definitely had a huge impact here. The president of Poland was supposed to be in Chicago for the Chicago Polish Constitution Day parade.

In case anyone wonders, here's a more ...coherent account of it.
http://chicagoist.com/2010/04/11/a_polish_artist_based_in_chicago_al.php
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Fnorder · Guest

Sadly, that's not entirely true. We still had Yakovlevs (Yak-40) one of which landed earlier in Smolensk with Polish journalists on board. It has happened many times before that commercial flights were chartered by Polish officials when Tu-s and Yak-s were unavailable. Also, the site could have been reached by train, and one of the invited politicians chose to use that connection. On top of that, the military has other transport planes at disposal.

But all guests were invited by the president to fly with him. Hopefully there will be procedures now to avoid such terrible tragedies in the future.

bad*lil*kitty · Posted: Wed Apr 14, 2010 9:37 pm Post subject:

mouse · Joined: 10 Jul 2006 Posts: 15474 Location: under the bed

made me wonder what precautions we have in place - the news report i heard likened the plane to air force 1 - there must be times the president travels with other government officials, but i guess hopefully not so many at once.
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