classicman • Apr 10, 2010 9:41 am
MOSCOW – Polish President Lech Kaczynski and some of the country's highest military and civilian leaders died on Saturday when the presidential plane crashed as it came in for a landing in thick fog in western Russia, killing 96, officials said.
Russian and Polish officials said there were no survivors on the 26-year-old Tupolev, which was taking the president, his wife and staff to events marking the 70th anniversary of the massacre of thousands of Polish officers by Soviet secret police.
The crash devastated the upper echelons of Poland's political and military establishments. On board were the army chief of staff, national bank president, deputy foreign minister, army chaplain, head of the National Security Office, deputy parliament speaker, civil rights commissioner and at least two presidential aides and three lawmakers, the Polish foreign ministry said.
Although initial signs pointed to an accident with no indication of foul play, the death of a Polish president and much of the Polish state and defense establishment in Russia en route to commemorating one of the saddest events in Poland's long, complicated history with Russia, was laden with tragic irony.
Reflecting the grave sensibilities of the crash to relations between the two countries, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin personally assumed charge of the investigation. He was due in Smolensk later Saturday, where he would meet Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, who was flying in from Warsaw.
The Polish presidential plane was headed for a military airport, North Smolensk, located near an aviation plant.
Andrei Yevseyenkov, spokesman for the Smolensk regional government, said Russian dispatchers asked the crew to land in either Minsk, the capital of neighboring Belarus, or in Moscow because of the fog.
"But the crew made an independent decision to land in Smolensk," Yevseyenkov said in televised remarks.
No one answered the phone at the airport throughout the afternoon Saturday.
Russia's Emergency Ministry said there were 96 dead, 88 of whom were part of a Polish state delegation. Poland's Foreign Ministry spokesman, Piotr Paszkowski, said there were 89 people on the passenger list but one person had not shown up for the roughly 1 1/2-hour flight from Warsaw's main airport.
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What a tragedy.