Air chief gets blame for Polish crash

Russian investigators yesterday pinned much of the blame for the plane crash that killed the Polish President last year on the chief of his air force who had been drinking and ordered the crew to land in terrible weather.

The report into the crash that killed Lech Kaczynski and 95 others was released with a chilling cockpit recording that ends with terrified screams as a voice from the plane's on-board navigation system repeatedly says: "Pull up."

The outcome of the report threatened long-troubled relations between the two countries, which had eased in the aftermath of the crash.

Jaroslaw Kaczynski, the late President's twin brother, and leader of Poland's main opposition party, called the report a "mockery of Poland". Many Poles have suggested that Russian airport dispatchers were partly to blame for the crash.

Kaczynski, his wife, and other leading Polish politicians and military officials died when the presidential jet crashed into a forest short of the runway at Smolensk last April.

The delegation had been heading to a memorial ceremony at Katyn, the site of a 1940 massacre of about 20,000 Polish officers, intellectuals and others by Stalin's secret police.

Investigators told reporters in Moscow yesterday that the pilots knew of the appalling weather and released recordings in which ground control could be heard warning against a landing.

They said the pilots were pressured into the landing by General Andrzej Blasik, the Polish Air Force commander.

They said he had an elevated blood-alcohol level that would have affected his reasoning, and the pilots would have been worried that failing to land would anger the "main passenger".

Polish Interior Minister Jerzy Miller, who is heading a separate Polish investigation, did not contest the findings, but underlined that he believes both Polish and Russian aviation officials were "unprepared" for ensuring a safe landing. The pilots' decision to land in heavy fog at an airport with only basic navigation equipment has been accepted by both as the main reason for the crash.

However, Poles have been eagerly awaiting the Russian report in order to learn if other factors - such as possible mistakes by Russian air traffic controllers or technical conditions at the airport - might also have played a role.

In Moscow, officials of the Interstate Aviation Committee said Blasik's presence in the cockpit was a violation of so-called "sterile cockpit" safety rules and he had a blood-alcohol level of about 0.06 per cent.

Blasik's presence in the cockpit "had a psychological influence on the commander's decision to take an unjustified risk by continuing the descent with the overwhelming goal of landing by all means necessary", committee chairwoman Tatiana Anodina told a news conference.

Kaczynski criticised that conclusion, saying that a suggestion of pressure on the pilots is an example of speculation based only on what "some psychologists are saying" with no confirmation from the flight recorders.

The report found no fault with Russian air traffic controllers, who "gave no permission to land", according to the committee's technical commission.

- Independent, AP