On April 10, 2010 the plane of the Polish President crashed when landing in Russia.
In dense fog the plane of the Polish president moved to dangerous altitude, collided with trees and crashed, failing to reach the landing strip about 300-400 meters away.
The catastrophe killed Polish President Lech Kaczyński, his wife Maria, the head of the Presidential Chancellery Władysław Stasiak, Deputy Foreign Minister Andrzej Kremer, Deputy Minister of Culture Tomasz Merta and the head of the National Bank of Poland Sławomir Skrzypek. As well as 11 top officials of the Armed Forces of the country, 14 deputies of the Sejm, three senators, nine representatives of the clergy, public figures, representatives of creative, scientific, political elite of the country and the airplane crew. There were 96 people in total.
They flew to honour the memory of the Poles shot by the NKVD in Katyn in 1940.
Russian investigators said the crash had been caused by the wrong actions of the crew, who had allegedly taken an unjustified risk because of high-ranking passengers and tried to land the plane in unsuitable weather conditions instead of leaving for the reserve airfield.
The Polish government commission attributed some of the blame to the Russian ground services. According to it, dispatchers reported the Horizont command too late, which was to be heard when the plane was 100 meters above ground. But the warning sounded only at half the height. Dispatchers also failed to notify the crew of going off course. According to Polish experts, the tower could have been occupied by strangers who distracted dispatchers from their work.
However, there is often a version of an assassination attempt discussed in Poland. In 2017, the Polish commission voiced the conclusion that the plane crash had been caused by a series of explosions during the flight. The situation is complicated by the fact that Russia has never given Poland the plane wreckage.
On the tenth anniversary of the death of its political elite, Poland planned to hold mourning events at the site of the plane crash, but on April 3 they were postponed to a later date.
