Polish President Lech Kaczynski's Plane Crashes Near Katyn

Poland is mourning the loss of its leadership as Polish President Lech Kaczynski's plane crashes near Katyn in Western Russia where he, the first lady and a large delegation were going to be part of Katyn commemoration. The president is dead. None of the 132 passengers survived. CNN News reports the bad weather to be blamed. Russian sources question pilot's activity and the plane itself, along with the bad weather.

According to CNN News and the Russian sources the plane of the Polish President went down after hitting the trees in the airport of Smolensk region near Katyn village. However, Russians also question three other factors, the pilot's decisions and the plane itself.

The air traffic controllers in Belarus asked the pilot of the Polish President's plane to land in the capital Minsk, which is a safer airport and has all the necessary navigation guiding equipments. However, the pilot refused and ignored commands from air traffic controllers to land in Minsk. The pilot went to Smolensk and tried to land 4 times. The last time was the fatal landing.

The second is the airport near Smolensk. That airport is under increasing criticism. It is a military airport and has not been used for 30 years. It is closer to Katyn where the delegation from Poland was headed. This is why the Russian made Tu 154 plane was headed there.

The third issue is the plane itself. This was a Russian made Tu 154 airplane. Poland owned it. The plane has a bad history of crashes in the past several decades. However, the plane is considered to be reliable if kept in a good condition. This particular plane was 30 years old.

Katyn is a village on the border between Russian and Poland.

The Polish president Lech Kaczynski was leading a very large official delegation from Poland to commemorate the Katyn Massacre. Unfortunately, now Poland has another very sad reason to never forget Katyn Massacre.

Katyn Massacre is a very tragic page in the history of Poland and Russia. In 1940, after invading Poland, Soviet leadership executed the entire Polish intelligentsia, and the Jewish, Ukrainian, Georgian and Belarusian intelligentsia of Polish citizenship. Nearly 22,000 people were executed in the forests of the village of Katyn. The Soviet government denied the massacre until 1990.

In a move to improve the relations with Poland, the Russian premier minister Vladimir Putin on February 4th had invited the Polish premier minister to commemorate the tragedy together. Three days ago, on April 7th Polish Premier and Putin commemorated the 70th anniversary of the Katyn massacre. Today the president of Poland was visiting Katyn, which became fatal for him.

Poland is under shock. Governments and people send letters of condolences to the polish government and people.

The partial list of those killed published on the Web site of President Lech Kaczynski's Law and Justice Party includes:

Lech Kaczynski -- Polish president

Maria Kaczynska -- The president's wife

Ryszard Kaczorowski -- Poland's last president-in-exile

Aleksander Szczyglo -- head of the National Security Office

Pawel Wypych -- presidential aide

Mariusz Handzlik -- presidential aide

Jerzy Szmajdzinski -- deputy parliament speaker

Andrzej Kremer -- Deputy Foreign Minister

Gen. Franciszek Gagor -- head of the army chief of staff

Andrzej Przewoznik -- minister in charge of WWII memorials

Slawomir Skrzypek -- head of the National Bank of Poland

Janusz Kurtyka -- head of the National Remembrance Institute

Przemyslaw Gosiewski -- lawmaker

Zbigniew Wassermann -- lawmaker

Grzegorz Dolniak -- lawmaker

Janusz Kochanowski -- civil rights commissioner

Bishop Tadeusz Ploski -- army chaplain

Written by Armen Hareyan

HULIQ.com

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