Polish President, Dignitaries Killed In Plane Crash

Polish President, Dignitaries Killed in Plane Crash

Updated: 2 hours 6 minutes ago

Lauren Frayer, Contributor

AOL News (April 10) -- Poland's president, his wife and some of the country's most prominent military and civilian leaders died this morning when their plane crashed while coming in for a landing in thick fog in western Russia.

Russian and Polish officials gave differing death tolls but agreed there were no survivors.

President Lech Kaczynski and his wife Maria were heading to Russia's Smolensk region to mark the 70th anniversary of the Katyn massacre, where Soviet secret police killed thousands of Polish officers during World War II.

"The Polish presidential plane did not make it to the runway while landing. Tentative findings indicate that it hit the treetops and fell apart," Smolensk's governor, Sergei Anufriev, told Russian TV. "Nobody has survived the disaster."

Russian officials said the plane was carrying 96 people, while Poland's foreign ministry put the figure at 88.

Local media showed footage of the crash site, where firefighters sprayed water on smoldering wreckage strewn through a wooded area. A tail fin with Poland's red and white flag colors stuck up from the debris. The plane reportedly went down less than 400 yards from an airport runway.

There was no word yet on what caused the crash. Poland's presidential plane was a Soviet-built Tupolev TU154M, at least 20 years old. Officials have long considered replacing the Polish fleet, but said they lacked the funds. The exact plane involved in today's crash was fully overhauled in December, including repairs to three engines and updating navigation equipment, an aviation director told Russian TV. He said there was no doubt that the plane was flightworthy.

According to the Aviation Safety Network, there have been 66 crashes involving Tu-154s, including six in the past five years. Russia recently withdrew its Tu-154 fleet from service.

Also among the dead were the chief of staff of the Polish army, the 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.

"We still cannot fully understand the scope of this tragedy and what it means for us in the future. Nothing like this has ever happened in Poland," the country's Foreign Ministry spokesman, Piotr Paszkowski, told The Associated Press. "We can assume with great certainty that all persons on board have been killed."

For some, the plane crash evoked haunting memories of the Katyn massacre.

"It is a damned place," former president Aleksander Kwas'niewski told Polish TV. "It sends shivers down my spine. First the flower of the Second Polish Republic is murdered in the forests around Smolensk, now the intellectual elite of the Third Polish Republic die in this tragic plane crash when approaching Smolensk airport."

"This is a wound which will be very difficult to heal," he said.

The crash could also be a setback for Polish-Russian relations, which had been on the mend after decades of mistrust over the Katyn massacre. Russia never apologized for the murders of some 22,000 Polish officers, but Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's decision to attend today's memorial ceremony was seen as a gesture of goodwill. Putin has been appointed head of a commission investigating today's crash, the Kremlin said.

"Russia shares the grief and mourning of Poland," Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said in a Kremlin statement. "Please accept the most sincere condolences to the Polish people, words of compassion and support to relatives and friends of those who perished."

Russian TV showed hundreds of people gathering at the Katyn memorial, many holding Polish flags and weeping.

With 38 million people, Poland is the largest of the ten formerly communist countries that have joined the European Union in recent years. It was the only EU nation to avoid recession last year, posting economic growth of 1.7 percent.

Poland is also a key U.S. ally in the region since the fall of communism. "This is a horrible tragedy for Poland and we extend to the people of Poland our deepest condolences," State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said.

A nationalist conservative, 60-year-old Kaczynski was elected president in December 2005. He had said he would seek a second term in presidential elections this fall, and was expected to face off against Parliament speaker Bronislaw Komorowski.

According to Poland's constitution, Komorowski would take over the presidency on Kaczynski's death, and then has 14 days to call new elections.

In Warsaw, the Polish flag was lowered over the presidential palace as mourners gather to lay flowers outside and light candles. Prime Minister Donald Tusk has called an emergency Cabinet meeting.

Kaczynski is the first serving Polish leader to die since exiled World War II-era leader Gen. Wladyslaw Sikorski was killed in a plane crash off Gibraltar in 1943. Kaczynski was born in 1949 to a father who fought in Poland's resistance during World War II. He and his twin brother Jaroslaw became famous at age 12 when they starred in a popular Polish film, "Two Boys Who Stole the Moon."

Under communism, the brothers became involved in the anti-government movement. Lech served as an adviser to the strike committee at the Gdansk shipyard, where Poland's grassroots Solidarity movement was founded in 1980. But by the 1990s they found themselves outside mainstream Polish politics after falling out with Solidarity leader Lech Walesa, who had by then become president.

In 2001, the Kaczynski brothers founded the Law and Justice party, which espouses traditional values of the Roman Catholic Church. As mayor of Warsaw, Lech twice banned gay parades and spoke in support of reintroducing the death penalty. But as president, his right-wing stance appealed to many Poles, especially religious or rural voters.

At one point, Poland's two top political jobs were held by Kaczynskis, with Lech as president and his brother Jaroslaw as prime minister. Jaroslaw stepped down from that post after 2007 elections, and is now Poland's opposition leader.