Polish president 'in plane crash'

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Lech Kaczynski is thought to have
been on board with his wife




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Officials say a plane carrying Polish President Lech Kaczynski
has crashed in Russia, reportedly killing everyone on board.



A plane carrying Polish President Lech Kaczynski has crashed near a Russian airport, officials say. Russian media reported that 87 people were killed in the crash near Smolensk, and a regional governor was quoted as saying there were no survivors. Polish officials said Mr Kaczynski was on board along with his wife Maria and several senior government figures. They were in Russia to mark the 70th anniversary of the Katyn massacre, when the Soviets killed thousands of Poles.

Plane 'hit trees'

The Russian emergencies ministry told Itar-Tass news agency the plane crashed at 1056 Moscow time (0656 GMT). Ministry spokeswoman Irina Andrianova said it had been flying from Moscow to Smolensk, but had no details on the identities of those killed. Smolensk regional governor Sergei Antufiev told Russian TV that no-one had survived. "As it was preparing for landing, the Polish president's aircraft did not make it to the landing strip," he 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."

Controversial figure

The BBC's Adam Easton in Warsaw says the president was flying in a Tupolev 154, a plane that was designed in the 1960s and capable of carrying more than 100 passengers. The Polish Foreign Ministry said the president and his wife were aboard the plane. Central bank governor Slawomir Skrzypek was also said to have been on board. Mr Kaczynski has been a controversial figure in Polish politics, advocating a right-wing Catholic agenda. He has opposed rapid free-market reforms and favoured retaining social welfare programmes.

[duru langu]

Huu ni msiba mkubwa sana kwa wapolish.
Nawaombea kwa Mwenyezi Mungu alifariji taifa la poland
na awasaidie wasiingie katika mgogoro wa kisiasa. Aida
roho za waote waliofariki zipate mapumziko mema peponi.

Inasemekana ujumbe ulikuwa uwe na watu 86 lakini jamaa
mmoja hakuonekana uwanjani. ama kweli kila mtu na bahati yake!

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Rescue services rushed to the crash scene, in a wooded area near Smolensk.

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Russian officials said the plane appeared to have clipped trees as it came in to land in thick fog.


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Authorities in the Smolensk region said no one on board had survived. The plane,
a Tupolev 154, is capable of carrying more than 100 passengers.



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Mr Kaczynski and other government figures were flying to Russia to mark the 70th anniversary
of the Katyn massacre, when the Soviets killed thousands of Poles. Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk
had a attended a memorial ceremony earlier in the week.



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Lech Kaczynski (left) has been a controversial figure in Polish politics.
At one point, he was president while his twin, Jaroslaw, was prime minister.

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History of the Tupolev-154 plane


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The Polish presidential plane - a Tupolev-154


The Tupolev-154 was for more than a quarter of a century the backbone of Russia's and the Soviet Union's air transport system. It carried about half the number of all passengers flown by Russia's national carrier Aeroflot and its successors in that time, with that number peaking at 137 million per year in 1990. About 1,000 were built, and some remain in service in Russia and countries that were once part of the Soviet bloc. The aircraft entered service in 1972 and was "modernised" in 1986, with new engines and equipment to improve its fuel consumption and flight operations. But as an indication of its ageing design, the Chinese government decided in 2001 to withdraw the Tu-154 from its airlines. Aeroflot took the decision to phase them out more recently, saying their high fuel consumption made them uneconomic.

Difficult conditions

An expert on Russian aviation, Paul Duffy, assessed the safety record of the Tu-154 in 2004, for the BBC News website. Of 28 lost in accidents up to that date - a figure about normal for the quantity, years of service and technology of the type, in his view - few had crashed because of technical failure, he said. "The Tu-154 operates in regions with not very good air traffic control and navigation equipment, and in very difficult weather conditions," he said at the time. Some of the accidents had little relation to the aircraft itself, he added. For example, in 1982, an aircraft landing at Omsk in Russia in a heavy snowstorm hit six snowploughs that had not been told to leave the runway as the aircraft landed. About five had been shot down by enemy or terrorist attacks in Lebanon, Georgia and Afghanistan during the civil wars in those countries. In 2001, a Tu-154 crashed into the Black Sea after being hit by a Ukrainian missile fired during exercises.



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The Tu-154 is no longer in production



One landed safely in a field after its cargo of cigarettes caught fire but was completely burnt.
Another ran out of fuel five miles short of the runway when the state airline of an almost bankrupt country decided to carry less fuel from its base, where the price was high. And Swiss air controllers accepted full responsibility for a mid-air collision between a Tu-154 and a cargo plane in July 2002. The Tu-154 is now no longer in production. BBC Moscow correspondent Richard Galpin says Russian airlines are not interested in newer Tupolevs because they are not comparable with Western planes. Aeroflot is now buying the vast majority of its aircraft from Boeing and Airbus.

[Matigari]

I heard yesterday that his twin brother will run in the coming election. I wonder why they all decided to fyl together, normally the high powered leaders fly separately to events. Is it poverty, lack of foresight or just thinking that it can not happen.