Polish pilot spoke perfect Russian and English. Captain Arkadiusz Protasyuk landed on the same airport three days earlier

Marţi, 13 aprilie 2010, 15:34 English | Top News

The pilot flying the Polish presidential aircraft which crashed in Smolensk spoke had excellent Russian language skills and had landed on this airport before, Polish press reads on Tuesday. Yesterday, a Russian traffic inspector, namely Pavel Plusnin, the last to speak with the cabin crew, complained that the pilots spoke rotten Russian.

Polish officials claim that the plane's captain Arkadiusz Protasyuk spoke perfect Russian and English, RBK informs.

Polish army colonel Bartosz Strolinski said he had flown alongside Protasyuk to Smolensk three days before the tragedy, when they flew PM Donald Tusk to Russia.

Strolinski, who did not fly this time, stressed that has partner has landed the plane safely, without any problem whatsoever, on Severnyi aerodrome.

"Arek spoke an excellent Russian; he found it easy to converse in Russian and English. On April 7, when we flew there together, there was not a moment of misunderstanding, no kind of observations", he said.

Another friend of the presidential aircraft's captain Grzegorz Kulakovski declared that Protasyuk had no problem before the flight. "He knew very well the airport and he was very prepared for the mission", he added.