Polish president killed in plane crash
By GREGORY L. WHITE in Moscow and MARCIN SOBCZYK in Warsaw
Wall Street JournalPolish President Lech Kaczynski and dozens of others in a high-level delegation were killed Saturday when their plane crashed on landing outside the western Russian city of Smolensk, officials said.
Russian state television reported that the Tu-154 jet crashed about a kilometer short of the runway on its fourth attempt to land in heavy fog at the Smolensk-Severnyi military airport, shortly before 11 a.m. Moscow time.
Reports of the number killed in the crash varied. Polish officials put the figure at 88, while Russia's Ministry of Emergency Situations said 96 had died and Russia's Investigative Committee said the total was 132.
"We still cannot fully understand the scope of this tragedy and what it means for us in the future," said Foreign Ministry Spokesman Piotr Paszkowski. "Nothing like this has ever happened in Poland."
"We can assume with great certainty that all persons on board have been killed."
Passengers included the president and his wife as well as other top officials. Slawomir Skrzypek, president of the National Bank of Poland, was also on board. Polish Foreign Ministry spokesman Piotr Pszkowski said that the army chief of staff and Deputy Foreign Minister Andrzej Kremer were also on board the plane.
The plane "clipped the tops of the trees, crashed and broke into pieces," the governor of the Smolensk region, Sergei Antufiev, told Rossiya-24 television news network by telephone.
"There were no survivors."
Rossiya-24 broadcast footage of shattered and burning wreckage from the site. Russian officials said controllers at the Smolensk airport suggested to the crew that it divert to Minsk because of the fog, but the crew decided not to. Russia's official RIA-Novosti agency said preliminary indications suggested crew error was the cause of the crash. The Soviet-built Tupolev-154 jet was about 20 years old.
Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk was on his way to Warsaw for an emergency meeting of the cabinet Saturday.
According to the foreign ministry spokesman, the government will meet in early afternoon local time.
According to the Polish Constitution, the speaker of the Sejm, Poland's lower house of Parliament, becomes the interim head of state in case of the death of the president. The interim president is required to call early presidential elections within two weeks from the day the president dies. The elections must take place within two months from the announcement of the election date.
Bronislaw Komorowski, a key presidential candidate in the presidential elections that would normally be scheduled in the autumn, is Poland's current Sejm speaker. According to government spokesman Pawel Gras, he is also on his way to the capital.
Piotr Wiesiolek, first deputy president of the National Bank of Poland, will become an interim governor, according to Poland's central bank law. Mr. Wiesiolek will head the central bank until the Parliament appoints the new governor proposed by the President.
Mr. Kaczynski, 60 years old, was leading a delegation of top Polish officials to memorial ceremonies at Katyn, the site of a massacre of 22,000 Poles by Soviet agents 70 years ago. "The soul trembles to think that Katyn has taken new victims," said Konstantin Kosachev, chairman of the International Affairs Committee in Russia's parliament.
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev named Prime Minister Vladimir Putin to head the commission to investigate the crash and dispatched Russia's emergency situations minister, Sergei Shoigu, to the site.
Russian state television reported that the Tu-154 jet fell about a kilometer short of the runway on its fourth attempt to land in heavy fog at the Smolensk-Severnyi military airport. There were conflicting reports of casualties, with Russian media citing a figure of 180, all of whom were killed. Russia's Rossiya-24 channel reported that the plane struck treetops short of the runway after the pilot decided to land in Smolensk despite the heavy fog.
The 25-year-old plane had undergone a complete overhaul at the factory in southern Russia late last year and had been delivered to Polish authorities in late December, the head of the manufacturer told Rossiya-24 television.
—Malgorzata Halaba in Warsaw contributed to this article
2 comments:
It sad to hear such tragic news. My heart goes out to the families of president Lech Kaczynski and any of his government officials'. I can't rule out that it was the plane that lead to this accident.
The Tupolev-154 tri-jet plane build by Russian is a popular model use by eastern European countries and most former Soviet bloc members. Russian built planes and helicopters tend to be less reliable and prone to crash, compares to American or European built. Not too long ago, Cambodia encountered such tragedy. A twin-turbo prop., An Antonov-26 built by Russian crashed over Phnom Bokor, near Sihanoukville, no survivors. I believed the cause was from the weather. Regardless, I wouldn't want to be on one the those Russian built planes.
No pun intended for the Russian friends out there.
Could the plane be sabotaged or was it shot down? After all, the president was visiting the memorial sites of Polish officers shot and killed by Russian troops in World War II.
This incident might remind Hun Sen that his rule is not immortal. He could die in a plane crash any time.
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