Well There‘s Your Problem - Episode 64: Smolensk Air Disaster

Episode Date: April 16, 2021

this is the episode where we make the poles mad feminist/lgbt groups in poland as mentioned in the video: Aborcyjny Dream Team: https://zrzutka.pl/55g5gx Ciocia Czesia: https://zrzutka.pl/ykc4uf Ciocia Basia: https://www.gofundme.com/f/support-ciocia-basia?fbclid=IwAR25hHVTFL0hJAhEr81K5LkuGbE3OcJr6AyW0Ni5FA6aVhWsMDpPHkkLgRM Ciocia Wienia: https://www.gofundme.com/f/support-ciocia-wienia?fbclid=IwAR2YTC6J2EEGSjCWNfaMgnDHfUasugxTZL-zSSdX5K8iePRpNshSxuc2_Tw Abortion Network Amsterdam: https://www.gofundme.com/f/solidarity-with-abortion-network-amsterdam?fbclid=IwAR2CR6z6lb5uffdtp0_gqDZ8NUqo4DrrOPpDA7D7MnixqyP14D_-UQ-Gl7I Abortion Support Network: asn.org.uk/donate/ Women Help Women: https://womenhelp.org/en/page/359/4-reasons-why-your-donation-really-matters Our Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/wtyppod​ Our Merch: https://www.solidaritysuperstore.com/wtypp we are working on international shipping Send us stuff! our address: Well There's Your Podcasting Company PO Box 40178 Philadelphia, PA 19106 YOU ALREADY SENT US ANTHRAX so please don't bother in the future thanks

Like yeah, I'll bite you anybody and everybody. Yeah, that's what happens to the shitty YouTube commenters now They get bitten. Yeah, you do. Yes You've got metal teeth like the guy jaws and you're just gonna come to the house and you're just gonna bite them Hello and welcome back to well, there's your problem a podcast about engineering disasters with slides I'm Justin Rosniak I I'm Justin Rosniak my pronouns of he him I'm Alice Caldwell Kelly my pronouns are she and her

That's right. No, I'm Liam Anderson. I don't get a joke. So my pronouns are he and him We didn't we didn't do that one correctly. So everyone's gonna be like, oh, they're making jokes about pronouns not serious And then we're gonna get an apology from that dickhead on Twitter and our comment and our good. Yeah, good all three of us are Deranged for different reasons. Ross has the vaccine madness. Yes, I'm fasting and Liam I'm also very tired and Liam is just sort of having sort of Oppositional defiant disorder at the moment. Yeah, I I was more Annoyed that I got bat signaled to come on here in the middle of dinner

So while I was having dinner must be nice. Yeah, you know what Alice you wanted to convert you This is of your own free will, you know, what's what would be of my free will eating a delicious dinner? Mmm, halal food. It's so good Alice Alice. I'm eating the food of your people Well, true I after I got the shot yesterday, I am I went by The halal truck it was open when I went in to get the shot and I was like, all right I'm gonna get some nice halal food for lunch and I came back out. It was closed I was like, this is annoying. Yes, cuz the vaccines got haram in it Like when they opened up after like 8 p.m. It would be like, oh, I can go get halal food now and then start drinking

This is great. Mmm. Yeah, I was about to say if they're open during the day right now That makes him a haram truck not a halal truck. That's true. They could serve you food It would just be like they couldn't eat it. Ah, that makes sense I mean, that's good. The temptation's got to be worse. You figure anyway, we're talking about Polish 9-11 Yes and When 9-11 happened to Poland This is the Smolensk air disaster. This is a tuplef

126 and it's not supposed to look like that. Oh, no. No, but there's a bit more plane Yeah, usually there's more plane usually the wings come out horizontally and This was for weight reduction. Normally, there's not a bunch of Russian firefighters standing around like oh boy Not that good. No, or a shot That's Don't remember how to say not good in Polish after several months on Girolango, but first we're gonna do the goddamn news I like that Alice is just completely show-run around this one. I'm sorry. I just Go we're not doing distractions. We're not even doing jokes

I Yeah, this is a flat engineering podcast No, I I just got off of doing an episode of kill James Bond and because We would talk about on her majesty's secret service the last movie is goddamn terrible, right? And because I'm I show run that I'm still in show run a brain. So I'm sorry, Roz I just bloodlessly could you you go ahead Okay, so Uh, it's happened again Brooklyn Center police have

Accidentally discharged a gun into a man named Duonte worried at a traffic stop There was an officer involved shooting and that they murdered a guy But like the person who murdered him was an officer. So this time they feel bad about it. Maybe Maybe yeah Second-degree manslaughter charge this afternoon I There they're making an attempt at charging them. So that that is sort of an improvement, but not him her Mmm. Can't wait for yet another prolonged trial process

Yeah, as is currently going on in Minneapolis Yeah, looking forward to a lot of like a subject mass or experts testifying that like He just like his you know, he just did that It was yeah, I'm related to the yeah, uh-huh. Yeah. Yeah, so it was I'm Unfortunately, I was compelled to accidentally grab for my gun as opposed to my taser. Mm-hmm going two reasons Well, I saw a black person and as you do I reached for my gun. You understand. We're all in Minnesota This cop was She was like a 20-year veteran was the head of the police union

And was a field training officer So she was training new cops how to be cops when this happens supposedly reach for the wrong thing. Yep Yeah, that's that's her defense by the way is sure. I am dangerously Irresponsible and cannot be trusted with firearms That's the that's the least the less Exactly, that's the least bad version is unjusted incompetent moron who happened to kill a guy. Yeah Never meant to hurt nobody. Mm-hmm of course. Yeah Very

It's it's just it's this this shit is still happening. It's very depressing. Mm-hmm. I haven't watched the video because You I usually I usually do just like, you know, whatever I'm yourself out Yeah, it's like a sort of minor act of self-harm, but in this case I just was not no I just Guess we should talk about that on the But given the protests You know, you can cut this out and that well, I guess we go back to the bail funds and shit The once a year bail fund sale once a year bail fund sale. Yeah Comes like Afghanistan you just have a fighting season like

Give bail funds your money and then you get bonus episodes. Mm-hmm And if you don't give bail funds your money, I will come to your house and rearrange your face for you Yeah, I'm like my thing. I'm just so fucking I think what it is It's just so fucking tired of seeing like like real-life human beings on Twitter who are just like Actually, you know, I'm not saying he deserved to be brutally executed by the state But he was a criminal don't give a fuck what he was like no if if the best argument you can make is actually I'm just dumb as dog shit That a that's not helpful to your cause would be like I can't like, you know

It's a it kind of got co-opted by the lives like I can't make you like compassion about other human beings Mm-hmm and like learning that is very difficult Like it's very hard to accept that like you can't force people to give a shit about other people Well, like but what I can do and what you should all do is basically make those people absolutely as uncomfortable as possible Like I was arguing with someone because you know, this is this is this is this is how I get my jollies Alice is screaming on Twitter Mm-hmm. It's like if you can bully these people into at least shutting up. Yeah, what I'm trying to say is bullying works all cops are bastards Yeah, it's time for some targeted harassment. It's target. Yes. It's time for our annual bail funding We're like, what is that the MPR donor drive except we are asking you to bail people out of prison

Funded by cyberbullies like you Yes, I Mean like even even the Libs at this point have internalized The thing about how hey, you know, the cops they're not supposed to just murder guilty people either So yes, and we're starting to even get to people who are just like oh The cops aren't supposed to murder white people in cold blood either and it's like come on Baby steps with these fucking people do I just like Also, I I I do want to say don't mind do you want to say I just want to say a series of like

Actionable threats of violence against the following named persons. No, I just wanted to specifically while we're doing our News roundup, which is just me screaming. I wanted to tell my mother Good luck recovering from your eye surgery. I love you very much I know you'll listen to this podcast and to my dad never comment on anything I ever type ever get old Yeah, if you go back to the the last the last episode you can see Liam's dad absolutely fucking aetherus in the comments For our white supremacy and he's not wrong. I like all the people who are just like My dad's complaining about Pepe lapio and your dad's like I'm here to correct my son's white supremacist statements on infrastructure

I was just like, you know what suddenly I told him to because he's he uh, he's on twitter at pa old guy If you want to get him Scared the shit out of him But uh, it's really funny because I I called him to like Because he was because he was super cute. He was like, well, can I leave a comment on your youtube? And I was like, yeah, you do whatever you want. I don't care. Uh, and yeah, you're an adult Yeah, and then like he was like, okay. I did it like really mischievously And uh, and I like I had to give the good news. I was like congratulations dad thousands of people across the internet

Think you're better than me. Yeah All right All right, uh, I seed control Speaking of afghanistan Hey, the segue I set up minutes before has paid off the segue that was five minutes ago. Yeah Uh, we lost first us supported insurgency to win a war we didn't lose I'm not sure if that's strictly historically true But I roast it down and I laughed when I was doing it. So yes, it's it's comedically correct

I am really enjoying the like but if we just stay there longer and I'm just like we've been staying there longer for 20 years Yeah, you physically control in afghanistan whatever piece of land you happen to be standing on at the moment the Dems all of it is Pavlov's house the Dems in congress who might be about to fucking try to oppose this are like their line right now is Yes, we want to leave But nobody wants us to leave and then have to go back and I'm like You don't have to do that. You don't have to go

You don't have to do anything. No, it's not it's not us territory. You don't have to worry about what happens in the car around Why don't we why don't we have a war and a place people can point to? Yeah Although we should have any wars at all Since whatever person in the car is going to be like liam's an imperialist. No, I'm not Yes, it's going to be your dad There's no economic or strategic value in controlling afghanistan. It's nothing there. I kind of miss heroin, you know, but It's it's it's the it's the silk road, but it's the us controlled portion of the silk road

It's like you thought the terrorists were bad before motherfucker Yeah, so maybe this is going to provoke a civil war on a genocide when when we leave that's kind of but Yeah, I can't win them all Can't win them all Yeah, so anyway, we were drawing from afghanistan by september 11th Nice quick 20-year war Does it It was all worth it and you know

All of the people who have suffered both american and afghan and british and everyone else Will know that it wasn't for nothing and it wasn't just like a futile colonial exercise and sort of spasm after 9 11 We are though apparently leaving behind a bunch of private military contractors because yeah, but those are the most responsible guys So they're going to equip themselves very well. Why are they always shouting in my fucking mouth? Credit bag it'll never listen to it. You don't listen to this anyway But like one of these days I'm just going to open my door and just start screaming and scream back I'm actually very nice and restrained if you if we ever form enough

Parasocial relationships to have a live show you'll be shocked by how nice and played or restrained I am Yeah, meanwhile, I'm just fucking like throwing drinks off the stage at people. Yes Oh, it's got cut in a bar fight by some dude who just hold a pint glass at me And no, I can't leave here so we figure out what can't did it You know, let's see you get enough bar fights. They all sort of rub together Oh Much like the u.s. And um afghanistan Yes, you do you do enough searches and after a while

They actually all started started in a bar fight. It's all long-term grudge Because uh bin laden had a hat when he came in Yeah I love that every newfoundland drinking song. It's just like all right. So we were at this wake, right? But we got a little too drunk, right? Now for the next 25 hours, we're going to describe in exacting detail Just what happened to us the corpse and the corpse's wife Well, that's because they just ripped it off of irish drinking songs and replaced ireland with thank you

Can you make finnegan's wakes scan to like bin laden's wake? You could try you could you could probably dump them overseas Dump them overseas something about the porn stash. I don't know. Uh next slide, please. Yes Okay, it's uh The great bastard We see here before Stalin had implemented a five-year plan to increase the amount of pixels in the Soviet Union It's this guy's fault. This is this is the prime mover of what we're talking about here Um, everybody's gonna get very mad at us

Uh, I encourage you to die mad My god, he said something negative about Stalin. Yeah Left unity baby. So there was this thing called the katyn massacre Uh, where after the soviet union invaded poland with the uh, cooperation of nazi germany Well, it's our ribbon trap pack for those are you not one of the the soviet union's finest moments, uh They captured his prisoners of war a large number of polish officers And what are we gonna do with these guys? Well, we got like camps in Siberia We could send them to and Stalin's like now you got to kill all of them, which they do. Um, the nkvd

Just methodically shoot their way through all of them and then dump their bodies in a mass grave in the woods Fantastic That's a fusion. Yeah, I don't know no repercussions It's never gonna be found out because who's gonna just be digging up woods in fucking western russia, right? It's gonna be fine And now we don't have to worry about polish anti-communists because we killed all of them um for like no reason

more or less, um And this this says the oddity of being a war crime that was exposed by the nazis Because it turns out that who just digs up a forest in the western soviet union is the nazis when they invade it And uh, they stumble across the first mass graves that they weren't currently filling and decide Oh, hey, this could be a useful propaganda thing Uh, they invite a bunch of international press and the red cross and they like look at the these murders that the soviets did um And even to this day, you'll find like

Teen Bolshevist on twitter telling you that it's all nazi propaganda and it yeah There's nazi propaganda based on the truth because that's Because that's the most effective form of propaganda is the truth because you can prove it and so that's what happened anyway uh Because soon there's this embarrassment to the post style in ussr and also to post soviet russia And at the time we're beginning our story in 2010. They don't Admit that this was starland's idea. They usually just blame it on barrier Uh, or you know, just like random nkv

Nkvd guys who just decided to shoot a bunch of polish officers. Um Next slide, please So what we have here is our boy putin at the uh, the one of the yearly memorials for it Uh, and it's a big deal in russian polish relations. It's sort of part of the Foundational, I don't want to say mythology because it's a real thing, but it's part of the ideology of the modern polish republic, right and so

Every year the polish the president of poland goes there and like lays wreaths with the russian president or prime minister And you take absolutely everybody with you and you can't like not go All right, everyone get in the big car. We're gonna drive this melansk Yeah, you're getting you're getting a van you're getting a van with all your polish vows Do you want to see the van big red and white van? That's not what would be ideal Oh god, it's got the purina logo on it I really like the polish air force round. I think it's style. Yeah, it's pretty cool. I've I've seen listen

Uh, I've seen your taste in military garb. I would I would hold comment This is this is a soviet built airliner. It's a tuplef tu 154 Oh, the soviet built signed my ass up It was bad to say if anybody remembers the nato code name for a tu 154 tell me because I don't love No, it would start with a C. Yeah, you're right because because it's a civilian airliner. No, you're right. You're right careless That's awkward, that's real awkward very awkward. Yes So the polish air force operate two of these

flown by air force crews as I've written down here pole force one. Okay air air force all Air force pole Yeah, so to get to the casting memorial the entire polish delegation Which is the president let kajinsky and a bunch of military brass the president's wife A shitload of reporters

The former president of the polish government in exile and i'm just a a fuckload of dudes pile onto the big red and white van And it's going to fly them next slide, please Yonder to from swasser To smolensk yes over belleros A similar path that many military leaders have taken before um They usually get a bat to smolensk before things start going south um

Yes, melonsk in many ways the philadelphia of russia in that it's where bad things happen. Yes You don't know me. You don't know philadelphia twinned with smolensk What what what what day is this and what year we should probably mention then? Uh, that's a great question 10th of april 2010 all right So on the 10th of april 2010 at 9 27 a.m uh, the the plane leaves warsaw Running like half an hour late

And ahead of it because this is a big presidential delegation. There's a small like business jet And it's a yak 40 that's got the presidential press pool in it That flies ahead to smolensk And it lands In absolutely dog shit weather Um, it's like it's foggy. It's raining And when those guys land at smolensk, they call back to Air force pole

And they say hey the the weather here is fucking atrocious I think they actually say it's it is absolute shit like verbatim Now so You know what what do? Well in in mosca in in this in russia, there's not a lot of airports is the thing The nearest one to smolensk Is uh, I think it's from nukova

But it's one of the mosca ones, which is 213 miles away. Yes If if you want to get to smolensk pretty much if you're a normal person you go by train like Part of the reason why it's an attractive place to site your Stalinist massacre is because it's a backwater, right? Yes um So those those are your options you try and like chance your landing in the fog where this guy is like telling you Yeah, it's cheesy. I can't see anything, right? Yeah, or you fly to the wrong city and just kind of deal with it

And you have to like I don't know. I don't know. I don't even know if there was like a highway between mosca and smolensk You know, it's gonna be a train line. Yeah, you know, you got to arrange for the president of poland and his delegation Like you got to get a railroad car for them and everything Yeah, would have been kind of like I do kind of like the idea of the smolensk tourism board being like You redo massacre your enemies You think where I go? Then you it happens upon you smolensk is open to the business

Smolensk, what do I say? I'm tired and mad at you. So we're we're all tired We're now We're now gonna conduct a detailed survey of the interpersonal political geopolitical Geostrategical sociological factors affecting a flight cruise judgment next slide please. Okey-dokey Everyone sucks. Oh, this makes me sad People people don't like getting yelled at I mean even people who are in the military and they get yelled at a lot. They still don't like it

um and one problem with being on any sort of VIP thing is that that's a lot of people who outrank you and a lot of people who are Whose job depends on them yelling at you. Yes. Yeah, and who are assholes politely And theoretically most militaries have a thing called situational command, right? Where you can still be in charge of stuff even if you're not the highest ranking person there like so If you're in command of a bit like a guard post a guy dressed as like somebody higher ranking Then you can't just tell you to open it

Or if you're flying a plane a guy who's a higher rank then you can't just tell you what to do with your plane, right? um in practice though People don't like getting yelled at and especially people don't like getting yelled at by people who can ruin their careers. Yes So the commander of this lycra is a major and um In the cockpit just sort of uninvited but hanging out as the head of the polish air force who is a lieutenant general um By my calculation that would be his bosses bosses bosses bosses bosses boss

That's all you want on the uh in the cockpit is someone who's going to cause that much tension just throughout his presence. Yeah We also have uh the president's chief of protocol protocols like diplomatic formalities the guy who has to arrange the train car And he's going back and forth to the president who uh kazinsky who is god rest his soul as a fucking arsehole Just in general interpersonally. He's a pain in the fucking ass And so this guy clearly does not want to have to arrange a Train car or you know a fucking convoy or whatever at short notice So the flight crew tell this guy the chief of protocol. Hey, the weather's pretty bad We might have to divert and the chief of protocol says well, we've got a big fucking problem then problem. Yeah

Yeah, it uh, maybe there's no highway and there's no train cars that they have to like You know go overland and it's sort of like They have to set up like a logging truck for everyone. I'm not loving the snow runner dlc So, I mean We've gotten to the point where like Legally, none of these people can just order the pilots Hey land of the plane at Smolensk anyway, they still Should get to exercise their own judgment

But this is weighing pretty heavily on that judgment, right? Yep There's a one point in the cockpit voice recorder where the um the navigator says that if they have to divert the president's going to go nuts and um There's there's a small anecdote here, which is two years earlier And this is further to my points about let kazinsky being an asshole Uh, he doesn't know didn't know how planes worked. So He got on to air force pole and as they were taking off he was like no, I actually want to go to this different place instead Like in the air he tried to change the destination, right?

That's not good. I mean You can't really do that Like you have to have a flight plan and stuff if you're gonna fly somewhere and if you you can't just decide you're gonna Change the thing where you're going And so that's what the captain of that flight tells him just like yeah, no, I can't do that really No, that's not that's not how planes work, mr. President And uh, he was like, yeah, I'm gonna have your job for this and he did so

If you want to keep your job In like which is Pretty prestigious, right? Like you're flying the president around that's Yeah, a lot of people probably want that job and there's a long line if you want to keep doing it You have to make the guy happy and if you're not gonna like even bend the rules for him, then he's gonna get you reassigned Well Kind of feel like you take a chance on the bad weather, right? Yeah, you know, like we could probably handle this, right? How hard can it be?

You don't see how hard it can be. I got a slide of the weather Uh, for which it's all for romance. Yeah, I was about to say yeah Yeah, this is this is the weather for which the Smolensk region is most famous is fucking impenetrable fog um It's like there's something about the topography of the area, right? Which again makes it very useful for doing mass murders in it's very sort of um Undulating lots of hills lots of ravines very thickly forested. It's definitely mass grave digging weather right there. Yeah Puts corpses in, you know, yep. Yeah

and Because it's so I don't know topographical I guess this stuff just comes off of the hills and it fills up the valleys and it just sits there But I mean it's it's it's fine. You're flying to Smolensk north airport. I don't know why it's called Smolensk north airport. There isn't a Smolensk anywhere else airport Oh, there is a smaller airport to the south Really? Yes Huh, I don't know how that escaped my notice. Uh, well, let's have a look at Smolensk north airport

This is the bigger one and the more well maintained one The more advanced one is about to say they got a bit of a grade on that runway. I don't think that's such a great idea Give you the sort of ski jump thing. Look if you can do it on aircraft carriers, why not? It looks like a kmart parking lot Yeah, this looks like somewhere where I would I would foolishly try to max out the gti. Yeah And I would be very confused as parts started coming off of it. Here's the uh, here's the cart return here Uh I knew someone once who was arrested for shoplifting from a kmart And and they were they were middle class. So it wasn't like they couldn't afford this stuff

Uh, it was just a matter of the thrill of passing Rested at a kmart though The thrill of shoplifting from the kmart. I mean What else is there to do when you work? Yeah, uh, next slide, please. We got another view of this kmart This is the air traffic control at smolensk north airport. Oh I this looks like I've you know, I've actually dropped here in war zone I was gonna say

Yeah, feeling my trigger finger. Yeah. Good loot up here Yeah This was uh, this was a military airfields and not a hugely important one I like the idea they tried to put camo paint just on a building Yeah, break up break up the silhouette. That's how we don't get bombed during the blitz Is what I figure you would put the the camo on the roof not on the sides Yeah, well, you don't know what they're coming from the other way. You don't know This seems like a way for a plane to accidentally roll into the atc

I know I can't call this a tower. This is a shed I like the ladder That's jim over there. He's been dead for six weeks, but uh, you know, it's gonna be replace him So I just do weird shit with his corpse. Take that right chip. That's right. Joey Oh, we got a busy one today here. Fox. It's just a corpse trying to get its man. Yeah We got some Some environmental Yeah, storytelling. Yeah, because they don't have an interior staircase there

So if you want to get up on the roof to see where stuff's coming from Yeah, you got it. You got it. The pilot's got to like wind his window down. You got to got to get a big bullhorn Runway tail. Runway tail, please This was a military airfield But it wasn't one by this point because the russian air force had decommissioned it the year before But like we don't need this Theoretically it it did civilian flights, but like only internal russian ones and then I don't know if there actually were any so This thing isn't it wasn't in like any of the databases for flight plans or terrain

Legally speaking internationally speaking. This was not an airport. It was just a like a flat thing um There was like a skeleton russian air force crew to like keep the lights on and climb up the ladder to like yell Runway two at you. Yeah, but that's that's pretty much it and um Also, it's in very bad terrain like just in general apart from the sort of Vibes of the area. It's on a hill which um You don't really want to have uh an airport in a sort of like Something where you can come down and be below the level of the runway and not on it's usually not a not a good situation to be in. Yeah

So also like Well, we'll we'll get to get to that within The next slide, please also the like they they were supposed to trim back the trees like In front of the runway on each side. Uh Didn't know Okay, it's it's birch trees too. So they grow like pretty tall and pretty fast. So I mean, look, that's not necessarily disqualifying. I mean modern planes. They basically land themselves. Don't like oh, yeah Yeah, that's what they want. Yes, man. Just maintain speed and just maintain speed now to tell

I can't actually fly the goddamn plane for you No Well the problem listen. Oh The problem was no you got melenska cars is It does not have a system. We would call an instrument landing system, right? Um, which is basically a series like radar and radio signals and a whole bunch of other bullshit Which I don't understand But the the gist of it is that if you can you can now fly the plane

To within a half mile and 61 vertical feet of a runway Uh, just without having any sort of visual reference to anything and by that point You're supposed to be able to see the runway and you sort of take over from there, right? This airport had former formerly had some kind of non-compliant Uh, soviet iLS system nice and how he has the best technology in the world They decommissioned it as a military airfield. They deactivated that system and replaced it with nothing Now in fairness they did have lights Um, all of the bulbs may have been broken

Oh, I forgot about that part. Yeah And also like not replaced at all several of them would just burnt out but like they didn't have lights So, all right, good start One thing I found out which was interesting is you see these buildings down here This is uh, uh, this is the yakalev factory Oh, I already yeah, I know right? I did not So apparently, you know, they can build aircraft here, but I assume they have to test them somewhere else Yeah by putting them on a train

And if only they had put our anti hero here On a train Well bowing ships, uh 737 fuselage is by train Yeah, it's the whole assembled fuselage. They stick it on a flat car And they uh, send it to renton where they put the wings on So you can do you can do that with uh with a plane but not with a president apparently Yeah, just that much relax. They just put the whole plane on the train. Maybe you wouldn't have noticed Hmm. Yeah, that's that's the plan is you got to put the whole tuple left on a flight car

Wallace It's genius All right, so they're flying in right they're flying on the plane into the airport and they're on instruments, right? Because it's very foggy Okay show Um, so your ordinary sort of instrument approach you got your iLS systems providing lots of information to the pilot about stuff like You know the glide slope, which is you know, the slope at which you approach the airport, you know, sort of uh How you your angle of approach, you know, all this other stuff about

Uh the flight plan, right and it's usually used in concert with a sort of predetermined Instrument approach procedure, right, which is a sort of standardized set of maneuvers To get an aircraft from the flight altitude down to the airport Right, so and if you're flying into an international airport or something like that you have all of that stuff, right? um, but melonska north Does not have iLS and it does not have instrument approach procedures right There are main navigational aid. It are two non-directional radio beacons

Cool, uh, and basically what that is is it's a radio beacon that provides a constant signal um Yeah, it provides like a dumb stream of morse of its own name. Yeah, which is going to be like a sound it'll be like Squirt, does it so doesn't have any like directional wait? No, it's not No, no non-directional, but like no, sorry. I wasn't like So nothing at all what I mean not even north south, but like No, okay, so it's Basically no information. Yeah other than here is the airport. Okay. That was that was sort of my question

And I didn't know if there was another one that said wrong way asshole Not even if it's directional, but uh, I I do I am happy that my favorite scab and shriella manifesto is making an appearance here The airport is I is so backwater that the air traffic controllers don't speak english All your air traffic control was carried out in russian, right? Yeah, you have a Your landing is being conducted by dimitri who has climbed the ladder Yes, and is going to essentially wave you in like you're parking a truck. Yeah And he's uh, and only one member of the polish flight crew spoke russian. So that was uh, oh, no

Spoke enough russian to uh to uh air traffic control. I think he was also flying the plane which she shouldn't have been doing No, like at that point you're supposed to give it to the co-pilot and you talk and he flies But he is like nine just do both. Yeah, so, you know, it's essentially what they're relying on to fly this plane at this point is, you know the radio altimeter the um non-directional beacons And the ta w s the terrain avoidance and warning system right and

what that is is uh The ta w s is the little man who lives in the plane and he says terrain when you get too close to something, right? Uh, he wants you to know about the terrain So you don't do something called a c-fit which is a controlled flight into terrain Which how controlled is it? Oh, I guess it is because you're not no there's actually a separate thing called an uncontrolled flight into terrain You can just say a plane crash. It's like what they say in the event of a water landing. That's just a plane crash, man Yeah, it's like when somebody it's like when a cause of death is cardiac failure. It's it's like a Yeah, you're confusing the event and the yeah

Who would do that? No controlled flight into terrain is a very specific thing where the air there the pilot has Complete control of the aircraft the whole time. He smashes into a hill. Yeah, right as he smashes into a hill. Yes Then like 20 seconds before Fronts Do that right to a hill killing himself and like 60 other people but that was kind of on purpose and crash right to a mountain Andreas Lubitz. Thank you. Yeah Aberlin, I want to say and no German wings

Um, yeah, and that was in the fucking old Savoy. I think anyway You also have controlled flight into terrain accidentally, you know, if there's low visibility as we may see Right because say you're surrounded by mascar fog Yeah All right, so you figure okay, the conditions are very bad Navigational aids are non-existent. They're gonna try and you know play it safe with this approach, right? Um, I mean if they were really playing it safe, they would have diverted to Moscow But they're gonna, you know, try and do this approach safely otherwise, right?

Um, true and you'd be wrong I Listen shit shit just hits different when you have your six times boss, uh, just in the carpet watching you Incidentally rated as an instructor on uh, as far as I know everything the Polish Air Force flew So he's just watching you. He's just watching you the whole time like Just say as his face becomes half mountain. Yeah The terrain avoidance warning system told them terrain

At 10 40 a.m. Right because Tau's was confused since he didn't know that's melence north airport existed Right, right. I think it was just not in the system, right? So to shut him up someone in the flight crew pressed the button to reset the altimeter So Tau's thought he was higher up than he was Uh, the other altimeters were functioning correctly though. So they still had reliable Altitude from everybody except the warning system Um, sure. They also realized they started their descent too late So they decided to increase their vertical speed to a whopping eight meters per second

Uh, which is much a much steeper slope than uh, what the aircraft was rated for on approach Yeah, it's gonna be the priest with more survival rations. Uh, fantastic Is this led to the airspeed of the plane increasing, right? Uh, sure just dropping right on top. Yeah, exactly. So, okay, they're flying in this airport. They're overspeed. They're blind They're descending rapidly their engines are at idle, which is going to be a problem in a second They're indicated. They're about 300 meters in the air as indicated by the radar altimeter, right? Who's readings the navigator is calling out and this this proves to be a problem, right? because

Your radar altimeter Gives you your actual altitude with regard to the ground directly underneath you Right, sure. And if there's undulating terrain That data is kind of meaningless, right? Sure So what they what they should have been using was the pressure altimeter Which gives you the altitude with regard to sea level Thereby giving you an accurate reading all the way on into the runway, you know And smolensk is of course built on a hill. So this is very important

Another problem is the engines are at idle Now during approach it's useful to have engines which respond quickly the throttle changes At idle the engines might take up to eight seconds to spool up to full power But as some larger fraction of throttle the engine response is much quicker, right? But since the pilots were already having trouble burning off all that speed, of course the engines were just at idle, right? right Yeah, as they're descending we're at 200 meters The Tau's system again got mad and started saying terrain

terrain pull up pull up And just kept saying pull up through the remainder of the flight, right? I just want to point out. I want to quick aside when Roz and I are traveling and Roz and I were going to the mountains a couple weeks ago And we we we pinned it We drove down a road that wasn't a road

And then a man Got very mad at us because that is maybe his driveway. Maybe not And what did Roz have to say as we got stuck in the mud? terrain terrain This was Roz's reaction to us getting stuck in the pouring rain in mud in a Volkswagen gti Yes, then to your credit you crawled around on the ground looking for a tow hook hole So yeah, it's true. Yeah, awesome They also have a russian man yelling at them because they have

Fucking dimitri or whatever in the control shed Who is reading their altitude for them off of a russian military radar that is just literally a big antenna on top of a trailer screaming it out at them He's he's telling them what the what the altitude is relative to the glide slope He's also wrong every time And then as they get low enough He's like, okay, this isn't gonna work. Just level out And they're like what? Does not pass at all

Yeah, I think it was like he was silent for like 12 seconds because everyone was confused Now the engines are at idle Around 200 meters in the air They should have according to the procedures written down in the tupolev They should have initiated a go around, right? Which is exactly what it sounds like you abort the landing you go around you try again right And in fact, uh, both the captain and the first officer said they were going to go around

But for some reason they didn't actually go through with it, right? The aircraft continued to descend do it lisa still completely blind And so they get down to about 60 meters radar altitude the ground comes into sight And the crew realizes they fucked up Um, they were 60 meters radar altitude was 15 meters below the level of the runway You're a submarine now. Yeah The Polish submarine that's where it's in the Polish airplane

And So you don't want to be measuring your altitude in a negative figure That's generally not a good situation for a plane to be in Right unless you got an air airport in like death valley or like, uh Shit, what's that? What's the one in israel? That's really low dead sea the dead sea. Yeah Um doing a dead sea water landing. That's what I did when I jumped into the dead sea

I just Then I floated it was I understand there's right. I didn't imperialism folks. I didn't imperialism There's like a little please edit that out. Please edit that out at all There's a little bar next to the dead sea This is the lowest bar in the world the lowest bar in the world. Yeah As current what it's still managed to clear what it's like to date me, baby All right, so they realize okay, this is bad. Um

They they uh Instinctively go full throttle maximum rate of climb, right? Um, the engines of course take eight seconds to spool up. So that didn't do much But it's too late anyway because the left wing collided with a tree They they later worked out that even if they had uh, like done it like as much as like a minute earlier They just would have stole the plane and crashed anyway. Yeah So, you know, the left wing collided with a tree The last 21 feet of the wing sheared off including the uh aileron

So the plane rolls over the left and the wing collides with the ground Then the nose hits the ground then it sort of disintegrates and cartwheels onto the runway Everyone on board died instantly 100 g. Yeah that noise 100 g impact. Yeah And I mean that's soup your soup. Yeah, you turn into a process to match it at that point He accidentally decapitated the Polish state and then sort of yeah, we accidentally did a first strike against Against the government of Poland because the president dies the first lady dies the fucking I think the ministry of defense dies Like two thirds of the armed forces senior generals die a bunch of members of parliament too

Yep. Yep. So, uh, this was not good. Um, you know, they're they're all dead Reliquid as always yes But this this had some some political implications even aside from the thing and to do that to explain that we have to talk about Our two beautiful identical boys the Kaczynski brothers. Uh, boy I don't know which one is which one of these fuckers Is lech who was the president who got killed the other one is Yaroslav now after

But these two founded together a party called the law and justice party pravoi spradliu wash and I apologize to all Polish people listening giro lingo has not served me well. Um, anyway like that was always sort of Center right ish, I guess but um eventually after

Lech is killed Yaroslav becomes president He also becomes significantly crazier. Oh boy He's probably got some some some PTSD to work out He's probably got some PTSD. He's also kind of got dementia like he starts muttering about like enemies and stuff um And there's a real rightward turn in polish politics after this because it's kind of like if The analogy that i'm drawing here is you know, you remember jeb And all of the other like moderate republicans who are like, well, we like doing all of the bad stuff

But we don't want to put a smiley face on like idea right when we say that we're happy about it. Yeah, exactly Um, imagine if all of those guys had been killed on 9 11, right? And it kind of like gives you the vibe here Because instead of living long enough to get owned by a game show host or whatever Instead you have a massive act of genuine national trauma like Polls are fucking shocked by this and for good reason because it's so implausible that this would happen um, and then all of the sort of like

Respectable politicians that like the greater part of the polish political establishment is just fucking gone um And you get like this this very weird thing that happens um next slide, please because We here we see our boy putin at uh, like kajinsky's funeral being sort of

Uncharacteristically emotional And like genuinely something seemed to get through to the russians about this one because it was so unexpected And it really did shock people on both sides to the point where uh, they showed uh, the polish film about the katian massacre on russian tv for the first time The the duma passed a resolution acknowledging that it was starlin who ordered it personally and like For a good few weeks, right? There was this weird opportunity for a genuine reset in in russian polish relations Uh, they were cooperating together on the investigation into this

um And it like i don't know something really could have changed and of course it did not it obviously wasted waste that opportunity Yeah Next slide, please part of the reason why is well the politics of jaroslav kajinsky and others um But like it also created a great deal of weirdness in polish society There were some guys who put up a memorial cross outside the presidential palace um

and Like in an extremely catholic way and then When people objected to this on the basis that hey, this is still a secular republic And also you just fucking put that up on state property. You can't do that You got these cross defenders Fully like statue defending guys, you know, except they had just put the statue up themselves Uh, just like getting in scuffles getting in fights with people because we have to like preserve the sort of the catholic character Of our state and stuff

um And along with this we have another form of derangement, which is the the thing that i'm showing here, which is the truthers the conspiracy theorists Trotil is polish for tnt. Oh boy So I think they put a bomb on the plane It's a controlled god damn demolition. No, it was a controlled flight into terrain. Yeah Listen braz. I don't know why you're impugning the bravery of the polish armed forces Against what was clearly a russian plot to destabilize the republic. No, I believe there was a bomb on the plane I just think they controlled flight into terrain did

Yeah Do you guys not normally carry the bombs on your flights? Just like yeah, over there is paul. He's the bomb handler Paul it's paul in one commercial airline seat and then just a bomb next to him And he's got to be the bomb watcher just sit there Like trying to ask the bomb what it likes to do on the weekends, you know, horrible stuff This is absolutely like the polish right is fully in crank territory about this stuff like if you If you fucking google in polish tnt on the wing or whatever

Ever since the the official inquiry came out the bypasses and russian polish one that was like, yeah No, they just flew it into the fucking birch trees These fucking guys have been like, oh, well actually You know what we found on this thing is we found particles particles from chemicals Yeah, but you know what? I never heard of any fucking chemicals on a plane before I can tell you that much You know what that means, you know, our chemicals come from is fucking russia. All right. It's true. And so Yeah, all right

Yeah, no, that makes sense to me They got the chemicals from the only place you get chemicals, which is russia um, yeah and so like It's so Bleak that you had something that genuinely seemed to advance A cause of cross-cultural dialogue and is now fully like

The equivalent of russia gate stuff. There's this guy Anthony Masiorewicz who did his own competing report, which is wildly stupid also the guy looks like an older polish version of jafar from a ladder Which suggested that like The people in there were screaming because they knew that the plane was being shot down by a missile all right When when they asked him about this and they were like, well, how do you know that because there weren't any

There was just a cockpit voice recorder, right? There was nothing recording the passenger compartment He was like, well, I mean, I just assumed also you can kind of hear out on the cockpit voice reporter Maybe you guys can't hear it, but no No, no further questions. I think they shot it down with a missile But the missile hit after it hit the tree. So it was still Actually just controlled The missile missed because it didn't think the plane could be at that low of an altitude. Oh, is that like when I stop with camel theory? Yeah So of two other abiding consequences of this one is that there's a a massive state-approved non cross-formed

Morial in in Warsaw, which takes the form of like a staircase to nowhere but The staircase doesn't go all the way down at ground level It's just sheer and the reason why it sheer is because otherwise people would climb it and To the point where there was just like might one of my Polish friends sent me A photo of like rings of Polish cops around this memorial because a kid was doing razor scooter tricks on it That happened to me in Prince Edward Island when I was nine They made me get off the confederation memorial

Because you were doing razor scooter tricks on it The other thing was they just fully abolished this Polish airfield squadron Now when when Polish leaders want to fly anywhere. They just fly commercial which Sucks I guess I kind of like the the sort of I like the livery and stuff, but then again, it's probably not worth killing Everybody important in the country over This is I'll put everyone on the same way

Yeah, this is genuinely I would argue The Smolenska disaster is one of the reasons why Poland is currently Capital our capital T like this. Yes right now. I think you can kind of draw a line between all of the fucking Adults in the room quote unquote politicians getting fucking turned into soup like a mojnet and you know the fucking strike kobiet and Abortion laws and it just all of it. So

I think it's kind of it's prefigured a broader trend towards European and also worldwide lurches rightwards But they got out a few years early by the simple expedient of turning their president into mulch Do you ever read the alternate history where? Uh, hitler never rises to power. So instead the german military is actually competent world war two and like I would uh Ideologue much better like much better at being hitler than hitler was rise to power. I can't remember what it was called And no, I'm not thinking about the premise for command and conquer red alert. I know what you're talking about. No That was that steven fry is making history. I think it may have been

Hmm Well, anyway, uh, that yes, yes. Yes Yeah That's the smolenska disaster though. There was no tnt. I'm staking my reputation unless t and the missile Uh anthrax give me anthrax both of those failed the dead nade and i i do i'm taking anthrax I do not think i go 30 on anthrax That he had to kill one half of this pair of identical twins to make some kind of a If you was is it uh

Who is it on trash future that says russia's entire foreign policy is trolling. Yeah, my oh, yeah Yeah, I don't think even even they and I know they love their their nerve agents But that would have that seems to just we would backfire quite a bit Yeah, and you can kind of see because like One consequence of the the like all of russian foreign policy is the crying laughing amount is uh when Something isn't them They will just fully go. Yo, that's fucked up. Actually. What the fuck? Uh as as seemed to be the case here. Well That was

The smolensk As liam says it small It's air disaster melensk melensk Shut up. I'm tired. We have a section. I I I apologize to every polish person. I've ever man. It's just ross except euros Let's get it. Let's get it. You go for the legs. I'll go for the arms Yeah, all right, uh safety third we have a section Oh god Oh, fuck

How do you all I'm sure you've got plenty of these by now But some of the more recent episodes reminded me of this incident and I finally got around to typing it all up This safety third involves two things well in the pods wheelhouse namely the interstate system of northern virginia And a surprise mystery guest Yes Several years ago. I was heading out of dc on a beautiful summer morning Driving west on interstate 66 for a volunteer event up in the shenandoah mountains Uh, I want to draw a distinction here

Interstate 66 is not root 66 Interstate 66 does not exist anymore. Yes, uh interstate 66 is a rather middling sort of highway that runs from washington dc Uh through a wind gap in the shenandoah mountains and onto i81 Um going to such exciting destinations as manassas and front royal Get your kicks on interstate 66 um i66 is normally jam packed with commuters and semi trucks, but on this day traffic was surprisingly light

I had just passed out of manassas and gainsville into the start of farm country Went off to the left I caught a sight of a few wisps of smoke coming up from behind some trees along the side of the highway It looked a little more uh substantial than just someone burning bush And so curious I slowed down a little as I tried to see what was going on Suddenly the entire width of i66 was engulfed in a wall of thick dark smoke Ahead of me break lights flashed and cars swerved before they were swallowed up entirely by the darkness Yeah, sour yeah sour sour on shit

My immediate thought was a tanker must have exploded given how rapidly the smoke had enveloped the road Even though there was no visible fireball I couldn't see into the smoke and I knew I didn't want to drive into it I also knew better than the slam on the brakes in the middle of the highway Since years of driving in dc taught me that it was an excellent recipe for getting rear-ended by some idiot behind you Mm-hmm Thankfully catching sight of the smoke coming up from behind the trees meant that I wasn't caught completely off guard Operating mostly on reflex. I braked hard while pulling off onto the shoulder

stopping a few dozen yards short of the wall of smoke Within a few moments the smoke congratulations. You're very bright because I would have gone ahead Oh, yeah, you and I would have been dead there, bud Last thing you would have fucking seen Within a few moments the smoke lifted revealing almost two dozen cars Scattered in a series of pile-ups across both the east and westbound lanes of the interstate Sitting in my stopped car it was at this point I realized that the section of highway in front of me was in fact a concealed overpass

I Glanced to the right and below the road and stretching away from me was the set of tracks in a tree line cut In the distance just pulling away around a bed was a steam locomotive Pulling several cars a few faint puffs of smoke emerging from its stack as it accelerated out of view The impenetrable wall of smoke it seems had come from the train as it passed under the highway How yes train good Six six eleven six eleven six eleven six eleven six eleven six eleven six eleven It might have ended up differently if traffic hadn't been as light or if a semi or two had been involved

But miraculously no one was seriously hurt After a while a couple of cars were able to move off the highway to clear a lane And belatedly I was able to proceed to my volunteer event This is revenge for a shader, right? Like after after the the overpass destroys a train the train decides to claim its revenge. This is a great hack. Yeah Yeah When I got home that later that evening I went online to figure out what the hell it happened There were no news stories about a train induced pile-up on i66

But that wasn't too surprising Given that it takes a particularly gruesome or disruptive wreck to make the local news in dc but A couple of google searches revealed that the tracking question was owned and operated by norfolk southern And on their website I hit pay dirt a press release announcing that The nine a.m. departure that very morning Of a north and norfolk southern sponsored heritage rail excursion from manassas to front royal virginia Featuring the one and only pod favorite norfolk and wester number six eleven pictured here big fan with very few pixels again

Um still looking great. Yeah, I know right By my reckoning the pile-up occurred around 9 15 a.m. Just after 6 11 would have exited the gainsville rail siding and right on time for it to pass under i66 Incidentally at the time I wondered why the smoke was so thick over i66 But there was so little smoke coming from the train stack when I cut sight of it moments later For what I was able to find is apparently common practice at rail events for the engineer to deliberately put out more soot And or steam when arriving or when leaving or arriving a station So as to create a thicker more atmospheric plume for train vans and photographers

Bombers are the fucking worst I will say he's probably also um Accelerating at that time, which is probably also gonna get you a little bit more smoke Um, you know, it's not the this is not the time for operating efficiently when you're accelerating the train out of the station Go home fovers I likely caught the tail end of such a plume on i66 as 6 11 passed out of gainsville So how does this story become a safety third? Well in this era of diesel and electric locomotives

I terribly suppose the event planners might not have thought about the prevent potential ramifications of literally rolling coal under a busy interstate Also, since the train was down in the cut the crew and passengers had no way of knowing the chaos and confusion Caused by their passing on the highway above Good dunk half. Yeah, it's cautious. Not interesting. Yeah in light of that and somewhat optimistically I decided to try and contact norfolk southern to let them know about the incident So they can incorporate it as a lesson learned into the planning process for future steam locomotive events As it turned out norfolk southern had a public safety hotline listed on their webpage. So I called them up An operator answered and asked her details on the incident and I began to describe what happened

About halfway through my description of her the operator cut in Wait, this isn't something happening now. It happened hours ago And I confirmed that the incident had occurred in the morning Ben began to explain I had been up in the mountains and out of cell service for most of the day And only just been able to get get home and contact The uh, the look up who to contact when the operator angrily interrupted again Listen, if there isn't a vehicle currently on the tracks or a train off them, you're wasting our time and they hung up Since then I make sure to

Since then I make sure to stay alert whenever I pass over a railroad cut Just in case a rogue steam locomotive decides to have another go at me Man, I I can only aspire to have that level of public service contempt Just be like You dare to call me a glass one railroad I'd smite you if they could You you you think that you were entitled to call me on the telephone You would call our hotline

Specifically set up for this purpose Yeah I love to I love to call a public safety hotline and simply get a who dares disturb the Norfolk Southern Got like a got like a wizard of Oz style like, you know, giant floating face with smoke Reminds me of the uh, like 19th century cartoons about how railroads are bad because the trains are monsters that like spew smoke everywhere and also have angry faces this is the kind this is the kind of uh A commitment to safety that won Norfolk Southern the Harriman award for something like 20 years in a row

Until I abolish the award because for what even whatever reason only Norfolk Southern could win it Yeah, because all of the other railroad hotlines Were not as hostile a good way to reduce the amount of accidents on your railroad is to not report them That is a hundred percent true It's how it's how Japan has such a low crime rate. So I mean Such a low crime rate and such a high conviction rate. Yeah Mm-hmm Yeah, if you get involved in the Japanese justice system, you're fucked. Um,

Oh, yeah, that's the moral of the story um The moral of the story is give the Japanese justice system to Norfolk Southern Or vice versa I don't I don't like train cops man. Yeah, train cops are bad Train cops but they have a 99 percent conviction, right? They basically already have that. I mean if you're you know, you're you're You are you you are guilty just by existing on a railroad property. Yeah, you are We are all damned souls. Yes

Um well Next episode's on the common areas bridge disaster Yeah, I'm going to spoil it. Uh, uh, Polish friend of mine has asked that we put some links to some, uh, lgbt and feminist groups in that country currently resisting the, uh, Far right populist consequences of all of the far right not populist guys getting murked In the description. So we're going to do that. Okey. Those links are in the description Yeah, I'll pass those on the dm. Uh, also, uh, bail funds. Yeah thing

Yeah, we'll do that. Well, well, well, we'll extend the the bail funds offer again Uh, we'll see how bad the protest if you give any of those Polish orcs some uh, some money will do the same thing for you That's our our special Kilbasa offer Yeah That's right a cab always a cab tomorrow a cab forever Thompson and your friends don't talk to cops. Uh You know, uh, I shouldn't have to explain to you why people getting murdered in cold blood is the state by the state is a bad thing Uh, if you've made it to the end of the episode and you're a bootlicker, uh, I have no advice other than to how bleep yourself

Uh, yes. Yeah, see I'm not putting in the actionable threats this time Excellent. Well done. We're all very proud of you. All right. Um, do we have any other commercials before we go? Uh Listen to trash you to and kill james bond. We just hit 10 000 downloads. She's very happy with that. Thank you Uh, yeah, I think I think that said damn All right, the motor ran through the broadcast All right. Well, it's good because I'm gonna go and bye everybody. Yeah, I'll feed us. Bye All right, we did it