In the history of Poland Saturday’s tragedy can be only compared to the catastrophe in Gibraltar on 4th July 1943. Then, for the curbed society the death of the prime minister Wladyslaw Sikorski meant loss of hope. Today we are in a very different situation, but the death of president Lech Kaczynski and nearly a hundred other people smites with its scale of sacrifice. Today’s world has not yet witnessed an occasion on which the head of the state and, at the same time, the Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces, and the six most important military chiefs died in the same instant.
In such moments all sophisticated words become meaningless; personal reflections are of more value. In the last decade the wings of both governmental Tupolev 154M planes with red-and-white check pattern have carried me almost four times around the equator. I had a set seat at the back of the plane, I knew every little slit in it; I even knew where next to the toilet there is a hidden 220V socket where you can plug in your laptop… Three years ago, the plane with number 101, which crashed in Smolensk, took me to New Zealand and Australia, which was the furthest trip in the plane’s history. What is more, a passenger of this very plane was one John Paul II, flying in 1991 from Poland to Vatican.
We can only speculate as to why captain Arkadiusz Protasiuk decided to land in very low-visibility conditions instead of going to a back-up airport or even turning back. The pressure was really high, as choosing the safer option practically meant preventing the president from taking part in the ceremony in Katyn. I am myself not surprised by the tragic in its result decision. I remember well a flight with the prime minister, when due to heavy fog in Warsaw we were to land in Cracow and then take a night bus to Warsaw. Having the information about a slight improvement of the situation the commander decided to take the risk of “trying” Warsaw, accompanied by applause of all the people on board! Then, the first light in Poland I was able to spot in the fog was… the illumination of the runway on Okecie Airport! On that evening our Tupolev was the only machine that came down in Warsaw; no civil airline was brave enough to do so.
However, I also remember a very different intermediate landing attempt, with another prime minister, in Chengde in China. The wheels had already been released, when the ground became covered with such a thick fog that only the tips of the trees could be seen – due to the conditions, the Tupolev was suddenly risen up and on the verge of the fuel reserve flew an hour further to a back-up airport in Kunming.
On Wednesday, 7th April, I had the chance to have a look at the unlucky airport in Smolensk, both from the air, and from the ground level. It is a former military base, similar to our Miroslawiec, in which a military Casa crashed two years ago. In both catastrophes the ILS (Instrument Landing System), which guides the plane as if by a stream of light in limited-visibility conditions, was missing. In Smolensk, when the weather is good, there are no problems with landing; the weather was good indeed on 7th April when the same Tupolev was landing with the prime minister Donald Tusk, but on Saturday, 10th April, it was disastrous from the very morning…
The society is shocked and keeps asking a question: why were so many important country officials flying on board of one plane? The answer is simple: because there was a special occasion and interest in this flight was extraordinary. Five years ago the list of passengers flying to attend John Paul II’s funeral was similar, except for that there were not that many generals.
Among the 96 victims of the tragedy in Smolensk I knew several personally,
however, I do not mean the ones of the highest rank. In Katyn, the prime
minister Donald tusk came up with a great idea to concentrate in his speech on
the life of the female pilot murdered in 1940 – Janina Lewandowska. For me her
counterpart on the list of the victims of the Smolensk tragedy is a 25-year-old
stewardess Justyna Moniuszko. She always remembered that I like my tea in a
bigger mug… She obtained her BSc and went on to do an MA course in aviation at a
very demanding Faculty of Power and Aeronautical Engineering. She decided to
work for the 36th Special Air Transport Regiment, to have constant air practice
– because she loved flying...