Summary
12 January 2011
Russia has blamed the Smolensk air crash, which killed the Polish president and nearly 100 others in April, on Polish pilot error. Investigators said the crew did not follow instructions to land at a different airfield due to bad weather.
Reporter:
Steve Rosenberg
Head of Russia's Interstate Aviation Commission, Tatyana Anodina.
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It was an air disaster that shocked the world. On April 10th last year, a Polish government jet crashed in bad weather near the Russian city of Smolensk. The Polish President Lech Kaczynski and dozens of senior Polish officials were killed.
They'd been on their way to take part in a ceremony commemorating a World War II massacre of Polish officers. Today Russian investigators laid the blame for the crash on the Polish crew of the Tupolev 154 jet. Instead of redirecting to a reserve airfield, the pilots had pushed ahead with their original flight plan, determined to land at Smolensk Severny airport, despite the poor visibility.
Investigators claim that the crew were under psychological pressure to do that from high-ranking passengers on board, including the Polish air force chief who was in the cockpit at the time of the crash.
Steve Rosenberg, 大象传媒 News, Moscow
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Vocabulary
- air disaster
plane crash
- commemorating
remembering
- massacre
mass murder or execution
- laid the blame
assigned responsibility
- pushed ahead
continued
- flight plan
route for their journey
- poor visibility
difficulty in being able to see out clearly
- psychological pressure
mental stress or strain
- high-ranking
very important or influential
- cockpit
area at the front of a plane where the pilot works
