Inquiry Launched into Polish President's Plane Crash Reveals Puzzling Details

An inquiry launched into the crash of the Polish presidential plane near Smolensk has revealed puzzling details as most of the original versions of what caused the tragedy have now been dropped.

Photo: Inquiry Launched into Polish President's Plane Crash Reveals Puzzling Details

Inquiry Launched into Polish President's Plane Crash Reveals Puzzling Details

Members of the commission established that there had been no terrorist act, no explosions, no fires and no technical failures and the plane’s engines kept working right until the crash, the chairperson of the Interstate Aviation Committee Tatiana Anodina said. The airfield had all the facilities to land all sorts of aircraft, including the YAK-40 and the TU-154. The navigational systems were functional. The crew was timely informed of weather conditions and reserve airfields. This information came from traffic controllers in Minsk, Smolensk Severny Airfield, and the crew of the Polish Defense Ministry’s YAK-40, which landed in Smolensk about one hour and a half before the disaster. The inquiry also established that non-crew members had been in the cockpit at the time of the crash, The Voice of Russia reports.

There were at least 2 passengers in the cockpit only 16 to 20 minutes before the crash, as they can be heard in the background on the cockpit recorders. It is said that one of the passengers has been identified, but the name of that person hasn’t been released, though it wasn’t the President. Investigators said that Poland will need to offer additional information in order to identify the other voice (or voices), and they didn’t say what the conversation on the recording was about.

President Kaczynski, his wife and the other 94 people on board the flight on April 10 died during the crash just outside Smolensk. The passengers were on their way to commemorate the 1940 Soviet massacre of 22,000 Polish intellectuals and officers, Car Rentals says.