A plane carrying Polish president Lech Kaczynski has crashed near the airport of the Russian city of Smolensk, the BBC quoted officials as saying on April 10 2010.

Smolensk regional governor Sergei Antufiev told Russian TV that no-one had survived the crash, with reports claiming that 87 people had died.

The BBC quoted Polish officials as saying that Kaczynski’s wife Maria was also on board along with several senior Polish government figures, reportedly including defence minister Jerzy Szmadzinski. Separate reports said that those on board also included a senior Polish opposition figure. The plane had been en route from Warsaw.

The Polish delegation was in Russia to mark the 70th anniversary of the Katyn massacre, when the Soviets killed thousands of Poles.

The BBC's Adam Easton in Warsaw said that Polish prime minister Donald Tusk was reportedly in tears when he was told. Russian media reported that Tusk was convening an emergency meeting of the government.

"As it was preparing for landing, the Polish president's aircraft did not make it to the landing strip," Antufiev told Russian media, the BBC said.

"According to preliminary reports, it got caught up in the tops of trees, fell to the ground and broke up into pieces. There are no survivors in that crash.

"We are clarifying how many people there were in the [Polish] delegation. According to preliminary reports, 85 members of the delegation and the crew."

The crash happened at about 10.50am on the outskirts of the town of Pechorsk in the Smolensk region, the Investigation Committee of the Russian prosecutor's office said in a written statement on its website, CNN said.

The Tupolev-154 was carrying a total of 132 and was landing in heavy fog, the committee said.


Among the first to offer condolences was the head of the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe, as well as Bulgarian Prime Minister Boiko Borissov, who said that the people of Bulgaria were mourning along with the people of Poland.

Source BBC.

This is possible one of the worst days of Poland's history in ages :(.

As an inhabitant of the EU I offer my condolences...

Thats not going to help relations! Sad day...

Oh, wow...

87 people died? Wow, it must have been a bad crash. A sad day for all those who have lost someone close to them.

That's horrible! I hope this doesn't harm relations.

The amount of people who died is one thing but what is really shocking is who those people were:

President of Poland and his wife

Last president of Polish goverment in London

3 vice marshals of polish parliament and senate

several so called "president ministers"

president of Polish National Bank

several other highest ranked officials from historical institutions and organisations

14 members of parliament from several parties  (our Parlaament has 460)

a lot of other high ranked officials

bishop of Polish Army and representatives of other churches

6 generals of polish army (highest ranked represenatives of navy/air forces/etc)

plus the most elite special force agents guarding president and crew of plane

Also with reelection in September two of the candidates for president died in the plane crash (current president  and leader of SLD)

Oh good lord, this can't end well with that many high ranking people killed. I'll keep everyone in my prayers.

Just another tragedy in a long line of tragedies.

O_O

Wow, that's horrible... Poland is going to see some political turmoil now, holy crap...

My condolences to all of Poland and to these people's relatives especially.

Wow. Very sad news. My condolences.