Russian Il-76 was not allowed to land in “Northern” a few minutes before the catastrophe

A military plane from Moscow, Il-76, has to land in Northern Airport half an hour before Lech Kaczyński’s plane, reports a Polish newspaper “Gazeta Wyborcza”. The Il-76 made two landing attempts. However, it flew back to a Moscow airport Vnukovo 15 minutes before the crash of the Polish plane. Air communicators from “Northern” forbade it to land due to bad weather conditions. An air communicator from “Northern” advised that Lech Kaczyński’s plane should also change the landing site. However, the pilot refused to return to Minsk.

The airport “Northern” was used as a military airport until December 2009. It was used to repair troop-carriers. The airport did not have an automatic navigation system that could have saved the Polish plane in the thick fog, said the editor-in-chief of “Skrzydlata Polska” Grzegorz Sobczak in an interview with a Polish portal “Gazeta.pl”.

Grzegorz Sobczak: “The presidential Tu-154 was well-equipped for a landing in bad weather conditions. However, the plane’s system is only half of success. Airports should have a corresponding automatic navigation system to let planes land in bad weather conditions”.