Too bad this didn't happen to the Bolsheviks when they were transported from Switzerland to Russia.

Ot:

I think it was just an accident.
RIP

Mr Khan said: MrBubbles said: i know the russian planes are shit...and the weather may have been bad. but i find it hard to rule out the possibility that its the russians acting on them being upset with poland and their current interceptor agreement with the US. and its certainly not above the russian goverment to murder people. I thought Obama had shelved the interceptor agreement as the horrible idea that it was...   It would be something distinctly Russia to do, but it is most likely an accident, and quite a devastating one. Who will take over from Kaczynski?

they did away with the larger missile shield plans.  the newer one has some sea and mobile sutff but there are some interceptors to be stationed in poland. 

Sorcery said: Honestly this sucks, talk about a coincidence. Is this the first time a plane carrying major political figures has crashed?

I can not think of a single time in history, outside of a war, that this many leaders of a nation were killed at the same time.

TheRealMafoo said: Sorcery said: Honestly this sucks, talk about a coincidence. Is this the first time a plane carrying major political figures has crashed? I can not think of a single time in history, outside of a war, that this many leaders of a nation were killed at the same time.

Aztec empire. Most of them died because of diseases :P

Samus Aran said: TheRealMafoo said: Sorcery said: Honestly this sucks, talk about a coincidence. Is this the first time a plane carrying major political figures has crashed? I can not think of a single time in history, outside of a war, that this many leaders of a nation were killed at the same time. Aztec empire. Most of them died because of diseases :P

That took two years, and less then 50% of the population died when it happened. random diseases did wipe out 80% of the population, but that took 60 years. Also it's debatable if those 60 years were at a "time of war".

Anyway, even if you want to count it, this would still be the worst single event in the last 500 years, with respect to the lose of a peaceful countries leadership.

Thankfully the country can still function normally since executive power rests with the prime minister and his elected resort ministers. Our constitution also gives the parliament marshall power to act in the presidents name should he become incapacitated.

This is a huge tragedy for Poland and a loss that will probably not be possible to deal with for the current government opposition since many of the people on board were prominent opposition members. This will leave the Law and Justice party in shambles.

From what we know so far, the control tower was beaming the plane multiple times that it was descending too fast but they didn't get a reply. So either something happened to the pilots, the radio or the whole plane in general during the descend.

As a reminder, the president was on his way to Smolensk because we are currently commemorating the 70th anniversary of what happened in Katyn, a small place in the forest near Smolensk where over 3000 polish officers were executed by the red army during WW II.

That damn forest has taken a lot from Poland, its like a curse.

Mr Khan said: MrBubbles said: i know the russian planes are shit...and the weather may have been bad. but i find it hard to rule out the possibility that its the russians acting on them being upset with poland and their current interceptor agreement with the US. and its certainly not above the russian goverment to murder people. I thought Obama had shelved the interceptor agreement as the horrible idea that it was...   It would be something distinctly Russia to do, but it is most likely an accident, and quite a devastating one. Who will take over from Kaczynski?

By Polish constitution all the president authority is transfered to the Marshal of lover chamber of Polish parliament Bronisław Komorowski, the same constitution requires him to within 14 days set a date of new election (which must be within 60 days from the day of annoucment) so before end of July new president will be elected.

 

Also the conspiracy theory is most unlikly - it could be old and outdated but still it was Air Force One so chances of making unnoticed attack that would leave any traces in black boxes are minimal and russians waited for polish experts with accessing them.

At the moment most probably it was a pilot mistake (or rather overconfidence in his ability to land there) :

the weather from above could have looked much better than from the ground, smaller goverment plane with journalists landed on the same airport an hour before (and pilot of plane went to Smolensk airport earlier), pilot had thousands of hours of flightly on this plane and was military and he had very important delegation on board which would be late to the anniversary of death of several thousands of polish officers during WW II

Yes, and I see no reason for Russia to attack Poland this way lol. I know the past of Poland, so I know they have a troubled history with Russia, but still... Why would the Russians killa president that's skeptical about the EU anyway?

mrstickball said: TheRealMafoo said: mrstickball said: Horrible news. Every major polish military commander died in the crash - air, navy, land, garrisons, ect as well as the president. I don't want to point fingers at anyone...But I wonder who the heck was the air traffic controller in Smolensk when this happened. I doubt it was anything but an accident. Plus air traffic controllers make good scapegoats, but pilots in plans have radar, and are the ones ultimately responsable for the people on board. There are dozens of times a day throughout the world that controllers tell a pilot where to go, and the polit says no. They see everything the controller sees, and care a lot more about there vector. Oh, I don't disagree that it wasn't an accident. However, it just sounds a little....strange....That it'd happen on Russian land.

On the 70th anniversary of russians killing polish people. Ironically if anything this is likely to ruin Polish/Russian relations unless the Russians are a LOT more transparent then they are used to being. Almost everyone important in your countries government dies after the people who once split you down he middle and who had since done everything it could to screw you suddenly seemed to welcome you in? I mean, just in 2009 a polish general asked the US for more troops to fight off a possible russian invasion.

Mr Khan said: MrBubbles said: i know the russian planes are shit...and the weather may have been bad. but i find it hard to rule out the possibility that its the russians acting on them being upset with poland and their current interceptor agreement with the US. and its certainly not above the russian goverment to murder people. I thought Obama had shelved the interceptor agreement as the horrible idea that it was...   It would be something distinctly Russia to do, but it is most likely an accident, and quite a devastating one. Who will take over from Kaczynski?

No, he just altered it. As it turns out Iran appears to be working more on mid range missles that could hit europe then long range missles that could hit us. So the shield is being redeployed to counteract a strike against Europe instead of the US. Or rather protect europe better. It will give the US some protection. Poland may have kept some bases... i don't remember been a while. Even Obama saw it as needed, he just thought it needed to be moved after new intellegence. It's like No Child Left Behind. He's actually keeping it but just modifing it. Instead of cutting school funding he plans to fire teachers and principils... I don't think the teachers union has caught on yet should be interesting.