Polish commission wants to go to Smolensk crash site

Berczyński said the team has not been at the crash site, adding that it has “been changed completely” since a Polish plane carrying then-President Lech Kaczyński, his wife, and 94 others crashed on 10 April, 2010, in Smolensk, western Russia, killing everyone on board.

On Monday, the seventh anniversary of the disaster which scarred the national psyche, the commission said that the plane was probably destroyed by a mid-air explosion.

The commission also claimed that Russian air traffic controllers deliberately misled Polish pilots about their location as the presidential plane was approaching the runway of the Smolensk military airport in 2010.

But Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov questioned the commission’s conclusions.

Peskov said: “We do not know … what [the commission’s] conclusions were based on”.

“Investigators have certain data – recordings of conversations on board and recordings of pilots and controllers – which do not include such evidence,” he added.

Berczyński’s commission was set up by Defence Minister Antoni Macierewicz after the governing Law and Justice (PiS) party came to power in 2015.

The party is headed by Jarosław Kaczyński, twin brother of Poland’s late President Lech Kaczyński.

PiS has long challenged an official report into the crash issued by the previous Polish government which cited a catalogue of errors on the Polish side, while also pointing to errors made by Russian staff at the control tower of Smolensk Military Airport.

A Russian report placed all the blame on the Poles.

Despite repeated requests from Warsaw, Russia has refused to return the wreckage of the plane back to Poland. (vb/pk)

Source: PAP