Prof. Anna Gruszczyńska-Ziółkowska: Tu-154M cockpit voice recorder (CVR) transcript was manipulated.
TV Republika, October 20, 2014
SCNDEK Feb. 15, 2015
Ewa Kochanowska
”I have doubts regarding the authenticity of the Tu-154M cockpit voice recorder (CVR) transcript from April 10, 2010, as published by MAK (the Russian Interstate Aviation Committee) and repeated by the (Polish) Miller Commission. There is a strong indication that manipulation and tampering with the recording occurred,” the Warsaw University Professor who took part in the III Smolensk Conference, told Telewizja Republika (Republic TV).
”The public has been presented only with MAK’s interpretation of the transcript, as well as a version approved by Maciej Lasek’s commission. Both of these versions were consistent,” said Prof. Gruszczyńska-Ziółkowska. “I doubt their authenticity,” she added.
In her opinion, the interpretation of any recordings is always a subjective matter. “My conclusions may also be wrong and this is exactly the reason why recordings should be analysed by a large number of experts. As far as I am aware, the Tu-154 M CVR tapes were analysed by small groups or just single individuals,” she explained.
During the III Smolensk Conference, Prof. Gruszczyńska-Ziółkowska proved that the transcript of the last seconds in the cockpit during the Tu-154M presidential flight has been falsified. ‘The noise, determined in MAK’s report as a sound of the Tu-154M hitting a birch tree, is in fact a blend of two men speaking at the same time. Comments uttered by the two individuals have been digitally altered by speeding up the tape,” she said. She also added she did not know why anyone would do that, but that “this is a case for the prosecution to examine.”
The Professor also proved that the word “kurwa mać” (obscenity) was not uttered in the cockpit just before the crash. “This was MAK’s interpretation. Why? The pilots’ screams and swearing in their last moments is a sore issue no one wants to hear or listen to again,” she says.
“It is necessary to get access to the original transcripts. Waiting for their Russian copies poses a further risk of their manipulation,” she stated.
The trip to Smolensk was expected to highlight Russia finally admitting culpability in the massacre, after long having blamed it on the Germans, an atrocity they had tried to conceal for over 70 years.
As for the reception committee, it had different ideas. Putin wasn’t looking forward to such an occasion. Into this poisonous reception brew was President Kaczynski’s well-known public criticism of Moscow and Putin, a habit that has ended the lives of others within Russia – and abroad. A few discouraging Russian requirements – that Kaczynski could not attend in any official capacity – did not halt the Poles. Kaczynski would go anyway on non-official, “personal” business. To Russians, such a distinction would be meaningless, not lessening the possible international excoriation of such an event. A problem ripe for a modern, Russian solution: a tragic, ‘natural’ accident.
Early morning on April 10, 2010, the Polish Governmental Airplane Tu-154M (“Polish Air Force One”) departed from Warsaw, Poland, to Smolensk, Russia, carrying on board the highest level delegation of the Republic of Poland for the commemoration of the 70th anniversary of the Katyn Massacre. The official delegation consisted of the President of Poland, First Lady, all members of the Central Command of the Polish Armed Forces, parliamentary, government and Church officials, and representatives of the families of the Katyn victims. Upon entering the airspace of the Military Airdrome “Severny” in Smolensk, Russia, the Polish pilot made one reconnaissance approach to landing. At the decision altitude, he chose not to land and issued a command to “go around.” Seconds later, the Polish Air Force One crashed. The entire Polish delegation of the highest level perished less than a mile from the Severny Airdrome in Smolensk, Russia. All 96 people on board were killed; there were no survivors ("Smolensk Crash").
Within minutes of the crash, the international media announced that pilot error led to the crash of the Polish Air Force One. This irresponsible rush to conclusion stands in contradiction to a well-known rule that whenever the head of state dies in a plane crash the probability of sabotage is increased. This principle was proclaimed, inter alia, in the Russian response to the investigation of the 1986 crash that killed President Samora Machel of Mozambique. The history teaches that when the head of state dies in the airplane crash, invariably the sabotage is involved. The history also teaches that initial investigations of high profile plane crashes tend to be conducted under undue political pressure. Transparent and impartial in-depth investigations are possible only years later.
While some Russian intellectuals and people in Central and Eastern Europe are alarmed by the Russian imperialistic ambitions of building “a new world order,” the West is utterly confused. In order to properly understand and evaluate the threat that Russia poses today, an unhindered analysis of the Russian behavior over the past decade is necessary. Unfortunately, due to the omnipresent policy of reset that forced Western media to abandon in-depth reporting on Russian hostility towards its neighbors, critical developments that took place in the regions bordering Russia over the past decade have not been reported at all or only favorably to Russia.
Among such key events is the political situation in Poland since 2007, with its central event - the crash of the Polish Air Force One in Smolensk, Russia, in April of 2010 that claimed the lives of the President of Poland, the entire Central Command of the Polish Armed Forces, and the patriotic leadership of the Polish society. Any analysis of the political context of this crash as well as any discussion of the problems with the investigation into this tragedy have been systematically suppressed by the Western media in order not to upset Russia. Consequently, the lack of knowledge about Russian behavior in connection with the Smolensk tragedy impairs judgment of the American public on current Russian behavior in Ukraine and elsewhere.
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