Lech Kaczynski may have ignored warning to divert jet after interpreting it as a way to sabotage his visit
Lech Kaczynski may have ignored warning to divert jet after interpreting it as a way to sabotage his visit Investigators are trying to determine what caused the devastating plane crash that killed a contingent of Poland's leaders -- including President Lech Kaczynski. Observers say, a one-time anti-communist with a gift for taunting the Kremlin, the Polish president had every reason to believe he was not welcome in Russia.
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| Tragic end: Russian rescuers inspect the wreckage of a Polish government Tupolev Tu-154 aircraft which crashed on Saturday near Smolensk airport. Pic/AFP |
Meanwhile, Russian and Polish authorities are deciphering flight data recorders from the aging Soviet-built Tu-154 airliner that crashed while trying to land in deep fog in the Russian city of Smolensk, killing all 96 aboard.
Russian dispatchers ordered the plane's pilot several times to divert to another airport in Moscow or in Minsk, Russian authorities have said.u00a0 For reasons so far unknown, the plane carrying a Polish presidential delegation to commemorate the Soviet massacre of Polish officers in the Katyn forest seven decades ago came in to land regardless. "The crew continued the descent," said Alexander Alyoshin, of the Russian air force. "Unfortunately this ended in tragedy."
But there is speculation that Kaczynski might have interpreted the order as a way to sabotage his visit to a memorial service for 22,000 imprisoned Polish officers who were murdered during World War II by Soviet secret police in the Katyn Forest.
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| Poland mourns... Soldiers carry the coffin of President Lech Kaczynski after its arrival in Warsaw yesterday |
Persistent prez?
Russian media reports also said the presidentu00a0 had once become angry with a pilot who refused to land in Tbilisi, the Georgian capital, on the grounds that it was unsafe.
Aviation experts in Moscow speculated that the same thing may have happened at Smolensk. They suggested he may have pressed the pilot to make at least two attempts to land.
However, grieving Poles cast suspicious eye to Russia.
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| Daughter Marta Kaczynska and twin brother Jaroslaw Kaczynski, pay homage on the coffin's arrival. PICS/AFP |
Poles suspicious
A broken-hearted the Polish ambassadoru00a0 Zenon Kosiniak-Kamysz, who was posted in Ottawa in January said, "I knew those pilots personally. They were very experienced and qualified. I express my own doubts that pilots, especially ones bestowed with the honour of flying the political and military elite of the country because of the pilots' superior experience and qualifications, would defy orders not to land."
"I am very suspicious. You can't trust the Russians. Polish people hate the Russians. They suppressed us for over 200 years. There isn't a person in Poland who hasn't had a victim of Russian suppression in their family," he added.u00a0 A small, elderly woman carrying a bouquet of flowers to the Polish embassy in Canadau00a0 said, "Russians good at covering up. Putin?"
After making a spitting sound, she added. "Cold, cold. Never change."
| Mom unaware |
Eighty-three-year-old Jadwiga Kaczynska is still unaware of the horrific tragedy that caused the death of one of her twin sons, Poland's President Lech Kaczynski.
Jadwiga Kaczynska has a serious health condition, and doctors have recommended that she should not be told yet about the horrific crash.
In the early afternoon on Sunday, the body of Lech Kaczynski was brought to Warsaw for a memorial service in the Presidential Palace. The body of his wife, Maria Kaczynska has not been transported to Poland. |
