First off, our condolences to the people of Poland and the families of those lost in the plane crash. Before any aspersions are cast, our thoughts are to those who perished.(CNN) -- Thousands gathered outside Warsaw's presidential palace on Saturday evening to lay flowers and light candles in honor of Polish President Lech Kaczynski, who was killed in a plane crash in western Russia earlier in the day.
Kaczynski's wife and several top military officials were also killed in the crash.
I have to wonder about this:
Other Polish officials killed in the crash include Aleksander Szczyglo, the head of the National Security Office; Jerzy Szmajdzinski, the deputy parliament speaker; Andrzej Kremer, the deputy foreign minister; and Gen. Franciszek Gagor, the army chief of staff, according to Kaczynski's Law and Justice Party.The party also said that Slawomir Skrzypek, head of the National Bank of Poland, was killed.
"The entire top military brass, including the chief of defense and all the services, were on the plane," Valasek said. "You're looking at a situation, in effect, of the decapitation of the military services."
Why were so many high-ranking officials on one airplane? I mean, I know families where the husband and wife won't fly on the same plane just in the million-to-one chance something happens. Wouldn't it have been prudent to have split the delegation at least in half? One would think that putting all of the movers and shakers from any country all together on one single plane would be an automatic "NO" from security.
And we won't even get into the irony of it happening in Russia on the way to commemorate the massacre of Polish POWs at the hands of the Russians...
That is all.
8 comments:
Back at Big Tech Company, they had rules about too many members of the same team flying on the same flight. I never heard that they were enforced, but someone thought this was a big enough deal to get a rule made.
Many companies, including my current one, have rules about putting executives on the same plane.
VW: twonism - an -ism of two; very apropos
Jay,
I had the same thought as you about the entire leadership of the Polish nation being all together. Look, we pull aside one cabinet level official when The President delivers the state of the union. When the Japanese signed surrender documents on Sep 2, 1945 on board the USS Missouri, Adm. Raymond Spruance was not present, in case the Japs tried some treachery and blew the whole works. And lastly, the plane was a TU-154. Aeroflot pulled their entire fleet of TU-154 craft from service after learning of a serious problem. Why the Poles didn't follow suit, we may never know, but I'll bet you blinis to perogis it was a financial decision.
- Brad
Irony... OR CONSPIRACY!
I just say that because it was in Russia.
Draper Laboratories of Cambridge, a serious think-tank (as in, designed the firing computers for the Iowa-class battleship's 16" guns, the guidance system for the Apollo moon shots and the guidance system for the Trident II ICBMs that our boomers carry) has a rule, enforced, that more than a certain number of it's personnel cannot be on the same flight.
And yeah, one of my first thoughts was that this sounded like the opening pages of a Tom Clancy novel. But then, I had the same thought on September 11th, 2001.
Oh, wait...
This coming at the same time we decide we won't expand NATO or deploy ABMs in eastern Europe .... the Bear ain't dead, folks, and somebody is afraid of pissing it off.
When José María Aznar, Spain's former Prime Minister, replaced the decades-old 727's used as official transport, the opposition parties screamed that it was unnecessary extravagance. Not long ago Britain's PM was still using a De Havilland Comet, not exactly known for it's safety record, and long since supplanted on commercial routes by more modern aircraft like 707's. When auto execs traveled on separate airplanes we all screamed. And more than 200 tu-154's are still in use on any routes where such noisy aircraft are still allowed in scheduled service.
Sadly, there is noting unusual in government VIP transport using obsolete aircraft. The safety record of the tu-154 is also nothing notable given the number built and the nature of their routes. And while the US government and publicly traded corporations might have policies in place to avoid the chaotic mess resulting from key figures all being incapacitated at once, have you ever tried to tell a politician what they can and cannot do according to policy?
Case of 'gotta-get there- itus'.
Jerk pilot was warned off twice and given diverts.
Most likely felt a lot of pressure from the Boss to get it down.
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