Violation by the Russian Federation of Rules and Procedures of the Chicago Convention, its Annexes and ICAO Regulations

A Third Person in the Flight Control Tower
DSIICU2011

The assessment of the role of Colonel Krasnokutsky at the Flight Control Station in Smolensk during the landing of the Tu-154M PLF 101 presented in the IAC Final Report contradicts the evidence and therefore is disingenuous and wrong. According to the IAC Final Report, Deputy Chief of Military Unit 21350 Colonel Krasnokutsky was delegated to the Military Unit 06755 “for the purposes of organizational control and assistance to the head of this Unit (who was not an aviation specialist) with arriving VIP flights on April 7 and 10. Actually this person from April 2 to April 10 was delegated the functions of coordination and control of all aerodrome services involved in accepting the arriving flights.”¹⁵The Russian side further claims that:

During the flights of 10.04.2010, according to the ATC recorder and his [Krasnokutsky] own explanations, this person was at the BSHP [ACT Near Control Place] from time to time (including the time of the accident) providing general coordination of various services, informing (by phone) of different officials on the actual situations concerning the accepted flights and weather conditions as well as coordination of alternate aerodromes. He was not directly involved in the air traffic control.¹⁶

The Polish side responded to the above statement as follows:

According to the recordings (reel 9 channel 4) he [Colonel Krasnokutsky] took an active part in conducting radio communications, despite several suggestions from the CATC to discontinue the approach of the Tu-154M aircraft by a clear command “Allowing them till 100 m only, 100 m no questions” and cuts off any further attempts of CATC to send the aircraft to a reserve aerodrome.

Clearly, Colonel Krasnokutsky was the most active member of the ground crew who talked directly to the Polish pilot and not only gave him detailed reports about the aircraft position and the situation at the airport but also made the critical final decision to bring the airplane down to 100 meters. According to the Polish side, the active role of Colonel Krasnokutsky in directing the flight that interfered with the decision of CATC requires a psychological evaluation of the situation at the FCT. The role of Colonel Krasnokutsky in the decision-making process not to send the Tu-154M aircraft to an alternative airport should be closely scrutinized. Numerous requests of the Polish side for information on the authorization of Col. Krasnokutsky to direct the flights at the FCT Near Control Place in Smolensk on April 10, 2010 were ignored by the Russian side.¹⁷Furthermore, the Russian side refused to provide any information about another person with whom Colonel Krasnokutsky had spoken via cell phone during the landing of the Tu-154M aircraft.

Footnotes:

¹⁵ IAC Final Report, English translation, p. 128

¹⁶ Ibid.

¹⁷ The Polish Response in English, pp. 111, 113, 114.