On 10 April 2010, a Tupolev Tu-154 aircraft operating as Polish Air Force Flight PLF 101, crashed near the Russian city of Smolensk, killing all 96 people on board. Among the victims were the president of Poland, Lech Kaczyński, and a number of senior Polish military officers, Polish government officials, and members of the Polish clergy, as well as relatives of victims of the Katyn massacre. The group was arriving from Warsaw to attend an event commemorating the 70th anniversary of the massacre.
The pilots were attempting to land at Smolensk North Airport in fog, with visibility reduced to about 400 metres (1,300 ft). The aircraft descended far below the normal approach path until it struck trees, rolled, inverted and crashed into the ground, coming to rest in a wooded area a short distance from the runway. Both the Russian and Polish official investigations found no technical faults with the aircraft, and concluded that the crew failed to conduct the approach in a safe manner in the given weather conditions. The Polish authorities found serious deficiencies in the organisation and training of the Air Force unit involved, which was subsequently disbanded. Several high-ranking members of the Polish military resigned following pressure from politicians and the media.
Various conspiracy theories have been circulated alleging that the plane had been deliberately brought down by the Russians in an act of political assassination, and that the 2011 investigations constituted a cover-up and that the Polish government of the time — primarily controlled by the Civic Platform party as opposed to Lech Kaczyński's Law and Justice party (PiS) — was complicit in or aware of the plot, or at least aided in the efforts to cover it up. These conspiracy theories are regularly promoted by PiS, particularly by party leader Jarosław Kaczyński (twin brother of Lech Kaczyński) and deputy party leader Antoni Macierewicz. Following PiS's return to government, a new investigation was opened into the disaster, chaired by Macierewicz; its 2022 conclusion alleged a Russian plot. The new report did not produce any evidence that could conclusively challenge the findings of the 2011 reports, was later indicated to have been the subject of tampered evidence, and was revoked in December 2023.
Background
The flight was taking many high-ranking Polish officials to ceremonies marking the 70th anniversary of the Katyn massacre, a mass murder of Polish intellectuals, politicians, and military officers by the Soviets during World War II. The site of the massacre is approximately 19 km (12 mi) west of Smolensk.
Smolensk North Airport is a former military airbase, presently in mixed military-civilian use. At the time of the crash, the airport was not equipped with an ICAO-compliant instrument landing system (ILS), the standard system used in most developed countries. The Polish Tu-154 was modified to use a Western-style ILS. A non-directional beacon (NDB) was installed at the airport, but such a device can be used only for non-precision approaches, where it can guide the pilot to align with the runway, but offers no vertical guidance on how to descend towards the runway. The airport was equipped also with both a surveillance and landing radar. The lowest approved visibility conditions to land (approach minimums) were cloud base 100 metres (330 ft) and visibility 1,000 metres (3,300 ft). The ground visual navigation aids on 10 April 2010 were not effective. According to the Polish report, the radar was unstable and swung within ±10%. The report from the inspection flight performed on 15 April 2010 stated that the approach lamps, depending on their location and on the altitude of an inbound aircraft, can be obscured by surrounding trees and shrubs when an aircraft is at a distance of 400, 700, and 800 metres from Runway 26. The lamps of the first group (900 m) had their light filters shattered and, of three bulbs installed, only one was serviceable.
The aircraft used the callsign Polish Airforce 101, operating flight PLF101. PLF is the ICAO three-letter designator for the Polish Air Force, used to identify the operator of an aircraft by air traffic control. The aircraft was a Tupolev Tu-154M of the 36th Special Aviation Regiment of the Polish Air Force (Siły Powietrzne), tail number 101. Built in 1990 at the Kuybyshev Aviation Plant as msn 90A837, it first flew on 29 June 1990. At the time of the accident, the airframe had accumulated more than 5,150 hours in 4,000 cycles. The service life of the Tu-154M is more than 25 years or 30,000 hours or 15,000 cycles (whichever comes first). All three Soloviev D-30KU-154 engines were within the service limits of 24,000 hours or 11,100 cycles.
101 was one of two Tupolev Tu-154s that served as official government jets; the other with a tail number of 102 was a year younger and at the time of the accident it was being overhauled in the Aviakor aviation plant in Samara. The 101 aircraft had undergone a major overhaul in December 2009, and Alexey Gusev, the head of the maintenance plant that carried out the work, told Polish TV that it should not have had technical problems. The crash happened 138 flight-hours after the most recent overhaul.
The cockpit crew of Flight 101 consisted of pilot Captain Arkadiusz Protasiuk, 36, co-pilot Major Robert Grzywna, 36, navigator Lieutenant Artur Ziętek, 32, and flight engineer WO2 Andrzej Michalak. Protasiuk had landed at Smolensk three days earlier on 7 April in the same Tu-154; he served as first officer on that flight. Protasiuk had 3,531 flight hours, including 2,906 hours on the Tu-154. Co-pilot Grzywna had 1,909 hours, with 475 of them on the Tu-154. Ziętek had 1,050 hours, only 58 of them on the Tu-154. Michalak had only 329 flight hours, all on the Tu-154.
Flight sequence
Take-off and cruise
Flight PLF101 took off from Warsaw at 9:27 Smolensk time after a delay of 27 minutes.
As the aircraft left Warsaw, weather conditions were rapidly deteriorating at Smolensk. A temperature inversion had developed, trapping moisture low in the atmosphere and causing a dense fog to develop. At 9:15 Smolensk time, about an hour and a half before the crash, a Yakovlev Yak-40 jet (flight PLF 031) also belonging to the Polish government and carrying Polish journalists from the President's press pool landed at the airbase without incident, though conditions were rapidly worsening at the time. Shortly thereafter, between 9:20 and 9:39 MSD, a Russian Ilyushin Il-76 (tail number 78817) made two attempts to land, but because of low visibility, it diverted to Vnukovo Airport near Moscow. Upon PLF101's approach to the base, atmospheric conditions continued to worsen, and the fog continued to thicken, further reducing visibility to 400 metres (1,300 ft). The ground control personnel stated to PLF101 that there were no conditions for landing. The Captain then requested and was given permission to conduct a "trial" approach. The controllers instructed the captain as to the landing minimum of 100 metres (330 ft), to which the captain replied, "Yes, sir!"
Stress and workload factors
Meanwhile, the situation in the cockpit was one of very high stress. As the weather continued to worsen, the crew became increasingly aware of the extreme difficulty they would encounter in landing at Smolensk. The crew may have feared a negative reaction from their passengers should they have to divert to an alternative airfield. The protocol director, Izabela Tomaszewska, was present in the cockpit from time to time, and the Commander-in-Chief of the Polish Air Force was present in the cockpit for the final approach phase of the flight, including the crash itself. At one point, the navigator is heard on the CVR saying "He'll go crazy", a possible reference to the president of Poland, should the crew choose to divert. There may also have been some friction between the Air Force Commander and the captain, caused by an absence in the latter of condition training.
The captain and first officer's decision making may have also been affected by knowledge of a 2008 flight when the president of Poland ordered a change in destination right before departure and again while airborne. The captain and first officer had been the first officer and navigator, respectively, on that flight. Lacking charts or a flight plan for the new destination, the captain of that flight had decided he could not bring the aircraft to the new destination safely. Disobeying the president and a high-ranking Polish Air Force commander on board, the captain flew on to the originally planned destination. The Polish prosecutor's office would later clear that captain of any wrongdoing in relation to that flight, and he was even awarded a silver medal of merit for national defence. However, in the final report issued by The Interstate Aviation Committee (Russian: Межгосударственный авиационный комитет, abbr. МАК)—a supervising body overseeing the use and management of civil aviation in the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS)—it was stated he had not been assigned to fly the President again since. Polish sources state he flew the President to New York in September 2008, despite objections voiced by the president. The captain involved in the 2008 incident flew the Polish prime minister to Smolensk on 7 April without the president on board, but he was removed from the crew of the 10 April flight which carried the president. Knowledge of the 2008 incident and its repercussions may have weighed on the crew of PLF101, potentially placing additional pressure on them to complete their flight to the original destination.
Complicating the situation was the increased workload on the captain. Normally, one pilot flies the aeroplane while another crew member handles radio communications. On Flight 101, the responsibility for communication usually rests with the navigator. At Smolensk however the situation was different. As the airport is not usually open for international flights and is not ICAO certified, the air traffic controllers were not required to be fluent in English, the ICAO standard language for air traffic control (ATC) communication. Accordingly, all communication between Smolensk's ATC and Flight 101 was carried out in Russian. Russian law requires international flights landing at military airports to have a Russian "leaderman" (navigator; Russian: лидировщик, romanized: lidiróvščik) on board the flight, who is then responsible for this ATC communication, done in Russian. In the middle of March, as part of their request for permission to conduct the flight, Poland asked for leaderman services and the latest airport data for Smolensk. At the end of March, after apparently having received no reply to their first request, Poland tendered a second request for permission to fly, but did not request leaderman services in this second request. As a spokesperson for the Air Force Command said: "The Russian side has not confirmed readiness to secure the flight leader". According to the Final Report, however, Russia did offer leaderman services, but Poland refused, stating their crew had satisfactory knowledge of Russian and could conduct the flight without a leaderman. In reality, the captain was the only member of the crew who could speak Russian adequately. Accordingly, upon being handed off—transferred—to Smolensk ATC, the captain took over communication duties from the navigator. In a normal situation, this would dictate that the first officer be the pilot flying the aeroplane, but as the weather was bad, the captain, as the most experienced member of the crew, elected to fly the aeroplane as well. Thus, the captain was simultaneously performing two tasks that would normally be split up, dividing his attention and increasing his workload.
Approach
Under these stresses, the crew continued their approach pattern and readied the aircraft for final descent. Radios were tuned to the two non-directional beacons (NDBs) present at the field, and the autopilot was set up to use waypoints from the flight management system (FMS) units for navigation. The crew used their second radio to contact the Yak-40 which had landed earlier, inquiring as to the weather conditions. The Yak-40 crew replied, "Well, generally it's absolute shit here," and that, "(we) were lucky to land at the last moment." The Yak-40 crew estimated visibility was 200 metres (660 ft), but told PLF101, "you might try...(to make an approach)." The crew of PLF 101 acknowledged this information and continued their approach. As the aircraft approached the outer marker, the crew issued pitch commands (via the CLIMB-DESCEND wheel) to the autopilot. This is not recommended for the Tu-154, as the autopilot cannot maintain vertical speed accurately enough for the approach phase of flight; manual flight mode is instead recommended. Although the crew had not requested it, the radar controller began issuing reports to Flight 101 concerning their distance from the runway and whether or not they were on the glidepath. The Polish report noted that on multiple occasions the radar controller stated the aeroplane was on the glidepath when it was not.