Contrary to initial reports, an examination of the Tu-154's black box flight recorders revealed that the crew made two, not four attempts at landing.

Three black boxes have been recovered from the wreck of the presidential plane which crashed in Smolensk on Saturday. Two flight recorders have already been examined, the third will be sent to Moscow today for examination.  

“We’ve got two recorders: a voice recorder and a flight parameters recorder. The Aviation Committee in Moscow has examined them and will soon publish a report on what happened on board of the plane just before the crash,” said Col. Zbigniew Rzepa, who, along with five Russian experts, is investigating the black boxes in Moscow.

Rzepa added that the boxes are slightly damaged but only on the surface. The recordings are intact, which means that the reconstruction of pilots’ conversations with the air traffic controllers will be fairly easy. 

The initial examination of the two black boxes showed that the crew had been advised not to land but ignored the warning and made two attempts to land. The flight recordings also reveal that Polish pilots, who communicated with the air traffic controllers in English and Russian, did not report any technical problems with the craft. The pilots also contacted the crew of two other planes which were in the vicinity.

Today the committee will examine the conversations recorded in the pilots’ cabin. (mg) 

Source: TVN24