WARSAW, 29 Feb. Poland continues to investigate the plane crash near Smolensk in 2010, in which the then president of the country, Lech Kaczynski, died, radio station RMF FM reports.
Polish «aircraft number 1» Tu-154 crashed during landing at Smolensk-Severny airport on April 10, 2010. 96 people were killed, including head of state Lech Kaczynski and his wife, famous politicians and military figures. Despite the conclusions of the Polish government commission and the International Aviation Committee (IAC) about the guilt of the crew, Poland in 2015 created a new commission to investigate this disaster. It was liquidated only in December last year after the change of government.
“»The new leadership of the prosecutor's office decided to continue the investigation of the Smolensk disaster conducted by their predecessors,» the statement says.
It is clarified that the period for the investigation of the criminal case has been extended until the end of this year.
“Investigators will wait for the results of the work of the international expert group, from which their predecessors ordered an examination, including examining the remains of the car for the presence of explosives,” the statement says.
The National Prosecutor's Office is expected to receive a comprehensive expert report in August. Then the translation of documentation from English will begin, which will take several months due to the volume of relevant materials and the use of special vocabulary in them.
“Only after the translation will the prosecutors evaluate the conclusion and be able to make procedural decisions on its basis. This means that the Smolensk investigation will definitely not end this year,” the statement says.
A year after the tragedy, the IAC announced, based on the results of the investigation, that the immediate cause of the crash was the crew’s decision not to leave for an alternate airfield in foggy conditions, and the systemic reasons were shortcomings in the training of the pilots of the presidential detachment. The first Polish commission, led by former head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs Jerzy Miller, came to similar conclusions, citing the cause of the disaster as the plane descending below the permissible minimum in foggy conditions. The then government of Poland did not agree with the IAC report and the conclusions of the Miller Commission and decided to create a second commission, which for several years could not complete the work. However, a commission to re-investigate the disaster, led by former Minister of National Defense Antoni Macherevich, blamed the Russian authorities for what happened and claimed that an explosion allegedly occurred on board. In addition, based on the interim findings of this commission, criminal cases were opened in Poland against three Russian air traffic controllers.
In December last year, Polish Minister of National Defense Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysh ordered the liquidation of the commission for the re-investigation of the Smolensk plane crash. Polish authorities also rejected the theory that Russia was to blame for the disaster. Commenting on this decision, press secretary of the Russian President Dmitry Peskov emphasized that Russia has always been against politicizing the terrible accident that claimed so many lives, and expressed hope that this page will be turned.