Cockpit Recording of the Smolensk Crash - A View

TVN played the cockpit recording from the Smolensk crash in full this evening and I listened just before I switched the TV off for the Ipswich game.

I have 13 hours as co-pilot, mostly in Cessnas, from when I was 12 - 13 and when my Dad was parachuting often (he now has several hundred jumps having started parachuting at 40). I landed on my own twice and it was the most extraordinary feeling. I left the plane walking several inches above ground. The adrenaline rush for little 13 year old me was immense. I have huge respect for commercial pilots, whose training is long and difficult.

I understood some of what was being said in the cockpit recording but not enough to get a sense of the pressure and tension the pilots were under, so I don't feel confident in pronouncing judgement on the pilots: it feels reasonable though to understand they were under pressure given the presence of others on the flight deck, the fairly recent censure of a pilot flying the President under similar circumstances and in addition when flying a comparatively basic TU-154.

One thing I do feel, strongly, is that is was wrong for the Russians to release the screams of the pilots and navigator in the final half second as they crash. It was disturbing and unneccessary, and I feel for the pilots' families. Everyone will have heard their loved ones in the final, terrifying moments before they died.