The subsequent investigation was conducted under the legal regime of the Convention on International Civil Aviation known as the Chicago Convention. Accordingly, the Russian Federation as the State of Occurrence conducted the investigation. Russia also acted as the State of Design, State of Manufacturer, and State of Servicer. On December 19, 2010 the Republic of Poland, acting as the State of Operator, State of Registry and State that suffered the fatalities of its leadership, submitted its comments to the draft Final Report of the Russian Federation.[1]
The objections of the Republic of Poland to the draft Final Report of the Russian Federation were multifold and of fundamental nature. They ranged from denying the Republic of Poland access to the investigation by preventing the Polish Accredited Representative from participating in the important tasks, denying Polish requests for information and assistance, to destroying, falsifying and manipulating the evidence, providing inadequate rescue and medical assistance to the victims of the crash, conducting the investigation in violation of international standards, and challenging the conclusions of the draft Final Report in its entirety. The credibility of the Russian investigative body, the Interstate Aviation Committee (“IAC”), has been challenged as well by virtue of its members acting in direct conflict of interest with their official positions with the designer, manufacture and servicer of the Tu-154M under investigation.
In the course of the investigation into the Smolensk crash, the Polish Government filed numerous motions and requests. Specifically, the Polish side submitted 222 inquiries for information to the Russian Federation. Only 34 inquiries were answered. The Russian Federation ignored or refused to acknowledge 169 inquiries, and partially answered 19 inquires. As a result of this lack of cooperation from the Russian side, the Polish Accredited Representative and his advisers were unable to fulfil their responsibilities under the Chicago Convention.
Among the motions ignored or refused was a request for information regarding the assessment of the minimum airdrome conditions at the Smolensk airport on the day of the crash, a request for video recordings of radar display readings by the Chief Air Traffic Controller on April 10, 2010, a request for photographic documentation from the crash scene, a request for data of the fly-around performed soon after the crash, and requests for inspection of communication and navigation aids. The Polish side did not receive any technical expertise of the wreckage debris. A motion to inspect the RSP-6M2 radar system in Smolensk was denied as well. To this day the wreckage of the plane and the black boxes remain in Russia.
The Republic of Poland as the state having suffered fatalities of its top leadership, was denied access to the relevant factual information with respect to rescue, first aid, survival data and details of the autopsy examination of the victims of the crash.
“Go-around”
The Russian conclusion that the pilot was under pressure to “to continue descent in the conditions of unjustified risk with a dominating aim of landing at any means”[2] is supported by the following statement: “At a distance of 1200 – 600 m from the point of first impact during the actual descent with the vertical speed of about 8 m/sec, the CVR (Cockpit Voice Recorder) recorded three reports within 8 seconds about the height of 100 m, equal to the established minimum descent altitude. [ . . . ] The PIC’s (“Pilot in Command”) decision to go around did not follow.”[3]
However, the Polish reading of the CVR clearly revealed that upon passing an altitude of 100 meters the PIC gave an order to ‘go around,’ and the co-pilot confirmed this command.[4] Thus, contrary to the Russian conclusions, the pilot did not intend to land. His order not to land was made correctly at an altitude of 100 meters, as required by standard airport landing minimum.[5]
The ‘psychological analysis’ presented in the Russian Final Report is based on the transcripts from the CVR allegedly containing statements made by the crew members during the last 30 minutes before the crash. These transcripts, prepared by the IAC in May and June 2010, contain lines which do not appear on the CVR copy in the possession of the Poland.
In the IAC Final Report, the Russian side twice included the following statement allegedly uttered by a member of the Polish crew: ‘He will go crazy.’[6]This statement has been used to prove that there was pressure to land coming from a third party, specifically from the Main Passenger. This third party pressure on the PIC to land is presented in the conclusions of the IAC Final Report as one of the main causes of the Smolensk Crash.
According to the Polish reading of the CVR, the words ‘he will go crazy…’ were never uttered by the crew of Tu-154M. In the opinion of the Polish experts, the CVR tape was altered to imply such a statement. Both the Polish Investigation Committee and the Polish Prosecutor’s Office publically concluded that no such statement was ever uttered by any member of the Polish crew. The Polish side unequivocally rejected any suggestions that the crew might have undergone any psychological pressure from a third party to continue descent. According to the Polish Response, “the record of the on-board voice recorder located in the cabin of the aircraft Tu-154M did not reveal any passage confirming the attempt to influence the actions of the crew by third persons, including the Main Passenger.”[7] This position was once again confirmed by the spokesman of the Polish Main Military Prosecutor’s Office on April 19, 2011 as follows: “In the documents gathered thus far there is no evidence whatsoever indicating that the crash of TU-154 was caused by undue pressure exerted on the crew of TU-154.”[8]
In the transcript from the CVR published by the Polish side in August 2010 at the point 10:38:00 (06:38:00 UTC) where according to the Russians the statement “He will go crazy…” was uttered, no such statement is listed. Between 10:37:22 and 10:38:30 the transcript lists the counting by the navigator of a distance to the airport beam and the following statement not included in the Russian transcript: “Tell that one more mile to the center remains.”[9] The Russian side ignored the Polish objections and used the undue psychological pressure hypothesis supported by false evidence as the basis for its conclusion.
Conflict of Interest
On the basis of the Presidential Order of the Russian Federation dated April 10, 2010[10] a State Investigation Commission was appointed to investigate the Smolensk Crahs. The Investigator-in-Charge for the State Investigation Commission was the Prime-Minister of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin. From April 10 to April 13, 2010, the investigation at the crash site was supervised by Vladimir Putin and led on the ground by the Head of the Flight Safety Agency of the Russian Armed Forces. During this three-day period, the following individuals played the key role in the investigation into the Smolensk Crash: Minister for Emergency Situations Gen. Sergei Shoigu who was in charge of the operation, Prosecutor General Yury Chaika, Minister of Internal Affairs General Rashid Nurgaliev, and Deputy Prime Minister Gen. Sergei Ivanov.[11]
General Shoigu is well known for his comments on the Katyn crime. In March 2009, Shoigu publically stated: “Our parliament should pass a law that would envisage liability for the denial of the Soviet victory in the Great patriotic War.” General Shoigu further stated that the legislation would also seek to punish eastern European or former Soviet states that deny they were liberated by the Red Army. “The leaders of those countries could be banned from Russian soil. Then the presidents of certain countries denying this would not be able to visit our country and remain unpunished,”[12] Shoigu publically stated in 2009.
On April 13, 2010, the general supervision of the technical investigation and coordination with the interested Russian and foreign parties was delegated to A.N. Morozov. The same day Morozov issued an order concerning the technical investigation in cooperation with the Russian Ministry of Defense.[13] By this order the ten member investigative committee was formed.[14] Several members of this investigative committee acted in direct conflict of interest with respect to the investigation into the Smolensk Crash. The most alarming is the presence on the investigation team of a representative from the AviacorAviation Plant in Samara (“Aviacor”). In his capacity as Deputy Chief Engineer of the Aviacor, Alekseyev was responsible for the technical reliability of the airplane under investigation because at the time of the crash the Tu-154M airplane operated under valid warranty from Aviacor. Just 3.5 months before the crash, Aviacor performed major warranty work on this particular Tu-154M. Similarly, the presence of Talalakin, a representative of the designer/manufacturer of the airplane under investigation, raises serious doubts as to his impartiality. Another member of the investigative team Nekrasov serves as Deputy of the Airport Certification Committee of the IAC. In this capacity, Nekrasov issued IAC certificates for many airports.[15] Another member of the investigative team R.T. Yesayan publicly declared that “they were seeking the ground and there was plenty of bodies.” With respect to the assessment of the work of the Smolensk FCT, Yesayan did not object to a statement by one of his experts that even “a chimpanzee could be seating and mumbling in the Flight Control Tower.”[16]
The IAC that conducted the investigation into the Smolensk Crash acted from the position of conflict of interest in many important respects. As a regulatory agency, the IAC certified the designer of this plane, its manufacturer and servicer, and the manufacturer and servicer of the engines. The average fee for certification ranges between three to five million dollars.[17] Accordingly, the IAC — as the agency responsible for quality control of the airplane, aircraft manufacturer, and the safety procedures at the airport — acted with conflict of interest in the investigation into the crash of the Tu-154M airplane in Smolensk.[18]
The IAC disregarded almost all Polish objections to its draft Final Report, and on January 12, 2011 announced its final conclusion that the pilot error led to the crash of the Polish governmental plane in Smolensk on April 10, 2010.
The Final Report of the Polish Commission for the Investigation of Airplane Accidents released on July 29, 2011 also disregarded the Polish objections to the Russian draft Final Report and merely replicated Russian conclusions. According to the audio recording of the conversation between the Polish officials who lead the investigation, the Polish Government made a political decision not to blame Russia for this crash.[19] At the same time however, a number of top Polish officials had a vested interest in putting the blame for the crash on the pilot who perished in Smolensk. In particular, Minister of Internal Affairs Jerzy Miller who headed the Polish investigation acted in direct conflict of interest because in his capacity as Minister of Internal Affairs he was responsible for the oversight of the Bureau for the Projection of Government Officials.
The families of the victims of the Smolensk crash who seek the truth, although harassed and intimidated, are determined to learn the full truth about the cause of the crash that killed their loved ones.[20] The international community should have a vested interest in preventing the Smolensk crash from becoming the modern version of the Katyn crime. Accordingly, instead of ignoring the problem, the international community should muster the will to form an international commission for the investigation into this unprecedented crash with grave international implications.
Maria Szonert Binienda, Esq.
[1] Remarks of the Republic of Poland as the state of registration and operator, Warsaw, December 19, 2010. See: http://www.naszdziennik.pl/
[2] IAC Final Report, English translation, p. 183.
[3] IAC Final Report, English translation, Article 3.1.59.
[4] The Polish Response in English, p. 142. The transcript of the cockpit recording with the command ‘go around’ was published in August 2011. See:
http://mswia.datacenter-
[5] Polish Response in English, p. 139.
[6] IAC Final Report, English translation, p. 103. See Also: http://www.mak.ru/russian/
[7] The Polish Response in English, p. 66.
[8] See: http://www.tvn24.pl/-1,
[9] Odpis Korespondencji Pokładowej, Załącznik 8, p. 118, as posted on November 7, 2011 at http://mswia.datacenter-
[10] Order of the Head of the State Commission № 225-рп.
[11] Aleksander Ścios, Zbrodnia Smoleńska; Anatomia Dezinformacji. Wydawnictwo Antyk, Warszawa 2011, p. 70.
[12] See: Adrian Blomfiled, “Russian to outlaw Criticism of WWII tactics.” The Telegraph, March 5, 2009, as retrieved on line on November 7, 2011 at
[13] Order №8-498/р.
[14] The technical team included: Investigator-in-Charge A.N. Morozov, Vice-Chairman of IAC – Chairman of the AAIC; Deputy Investigator-in-Charge: V.V. Sorochenko, Deputy Head of the Flight Safety Agency, Russian Armed Forces, Deputy Investigator-in-Charge: G.A. Yachmenev, Vice-Chairman of the AAIC, IAC; Members: 1) A.V. Alekseyev, Deputy of the Chief Engineer, Aviakor Ltd. Aviation Plant, 2) R.T. Yesayan, Deputy General Director – Head of flight-research center, State Research Institute for Civil Aviation; 3) N.M. Kozhevnikova, Consultant, AAIC, IAC; 4) M.S. Kulikov, Chief ATC instructor, Air Navigation Institute; 5) V.G. Nekrasov, Vice-Chairman of Airdrome and Equipment Certification Commission. IAC; 6) A.V. Roldugin, Vice-Chairman of the AAISTSC, IAC; 7) A.A. Talalakin, Deputy of the Chief Constructor, Tupolev Design Bureau.
[15] Nekrasov certified the Sochi airport where on May 3, 2006 an Armenian plane crash-landed in bad weather. According to the IAC, the pilot was at fault. Armenia protested this finding, pointing out that the pilot did not receive appropriate support from the FCT. See: Ścios, Zbrodnia Smoleńska, p. 72
[16] Ścios, Zbrodnia Smoleńska, p. 72.
[17] Per estimates of Michail Markov, the IAC received from Aviacor close to $ 25 million from certification fees. The credibility of the IAC is also challenged in connection with a major malfunction of the TU-154M airplane that took place in January of 2010 in Haiti. The IAC as the agency overseeing Aviacor took no action with respect to this incident.
[18] The Tu-154M that crashed in Smolensk had experienced a major technical problem on landing in Haiti in January 2010. The IAC, as the agency overseeing Aviacor, took no action with respect to this incident.
[19] See: http://www.youtube.com/watch?
[20] See: http://www.youtube.com/watch?