The weakest link in aviation is man. And now it is difficult to say unequivocally which man has failed – said Captain Oskar Maliszewski in “Facts after Facts” on TVN24, commenting on the Air disaster in Washington. The former director of LPR Professor Robert Gałązkowski estimated that although the services always first go to the rescue operation, the circumstances of the accident “did not give too much chance to survive passengers”.
Captain Oskar Maliszewski, a pilot of the Gulfstream 650 aircraft and Professor Robert Gałązkowski (Medical University of Warsaw), former director of the Air Ambulance spoke in “Facts after Facts” on TVN24 about the air disaster that occurred in Washington. The passenger plane collided with a military helicopter and fell into the Potomak river next to Ronald Reagan airport. There were a total of 67 people in the machines. President Donald Trump said that no one survived.
– Man is the weakest link in aviation. And now it is difficult to say unequivocally which man has failed – said Maliszewski.
He mentioned that he had landed many times at the nearby Washington-Dulles international airport. – I often wondered that it is good that I do not have to fly at Reagan's airport, because Reagana Airport has quite difficult visual approaches. This is the specificity of the American organization of air traffic and American space. There are many more visual approaches and therefore, much more responsibility is (…) on the crews of aircraft – he said.
He explained that “a visual approach means that at some point, when approaching the airport at a distance of 10, sometimes even 20 nautical miles, the controller asks the crew if he sees the airport.” – If the crew confirms that he sees the airport, he sees the belt on which he is to land, then the controller in the United States gives very willingly – in Europe practically not, Europe is completely differently organized – permission to approach with visibility, visual approach. Because it reduces his amount of work and takes his responsibility from him, even for separation with other planes – said the captain.
“They always start to save”
Gałązkowski spoke about the conditions in which the emergency services joined the action. The disaster occurred in the evening and the machines fell into the river. As Anita Werner, the host of the program, noted, the temperature at night in Washington was five degrees below zero, and the water depth in the river is about 2.5 meters.
As the medical rescue expert admitted and the former director of LRPR, “the air disaster itself brings a very high probability of passengers' death.”
– This is a high speed, high overload, usually multi -organ injuries. And so it was probably in this case. In addition, these conditions are certainly critical conditions for survival. Because cold water even introduces a healthy person very quickly into a state of hypothermia, let alone an unconscious person or a person who suffered a multi -organ injury – he explained.
– The circumstances of this disaster from the very beginning, from the description of the event itself, but also these weather conditions, did not give too much chance of survival of passengers – he added.
However, he noted that “always emergency services, when they go to such an event, move to save”. “And these first minutes, hours, we believe that we can save someone,” he said. – But the moment comes when common sense must control, because we also have to take care of the safety of rescuers – said Gałązkowski.
Source of the main photo: PAP/EPA/SHAWN THEW