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Today's Top News
Polish President, His Wife, and Many Others Killed in Plane Disaster
SMOLENSK, Russia – A plane carrying Polish President Lech Kaczynski and much of the nation's ruling elite crashed landed in the Russian city of Smolensk on Saturday killing all 96 people on board.
A plane with Polish President Lech Kaczynsk -- pictured on April 8 -- and much of the nation's ruling elite have crashed landed in the Russian city of Smolensk killing all 96 people on board. The Tupolev Tu-154 jet was carrying
Kaczysnki and his wife, the military chief of staff, central bank
governor, deputy foreign minister, members of parliament and other top
officials to a ceremony for thousands of Polish troops massacred by
Russian forces in World War II.
The Russia-built jet hit treetops in fog as it approached Smolensk, crashed and broke up in flames, Smolensk regional governor Sergei Antufiev said.
"It clipped the tops of the trees, crashed down and broke into pieces," Antufiev told Russia-24 television news network. "There were no survivors."
Russian news agencies said pilot error had come under immediate suspicion.
The wreckage was scattered across a forest with parts of it still on fire, Russian television images showed. Firefighters doused the flames. Related article: Polish MP to take presidential duties
Former Polish president Lech Walesa, who headed the Solidarity movement, called the crash "inconceivable".
"The Soviets killed Polish elites in Katyn 70 years ago. Today, the Polish elite died there while getting ready to pay homage to the Poles killed there," a shaken Walesa told AFP.
The passengers included General Franciszek Gagor, chief of Poland's armed forces, central bank governor Slawomir Skrzypek, deputy foreign minister Andrzej Kremer, Kaczynski's wife Maria, and scores of MPs, historians and other officials, Polish officials said.
All were to attend a memorial service in the Katyn Forest, near the crash scene, where 22,000 top Polish officers and troops were killed by Soviet troops 70 years ago. It had been intended to help the reconciliation between Poland and Russia.
The jet's engines and a large chunk of its mud-caked tailfin, strewn over a large area in the fog-blanketed forest.
Firefighters hosed down burning sections of the plane while security personnel and civilian investigators inspected the wreckage.
Officials in Warsaw confirmed that Kaczynski was aboard the plane and Russian television broadcast video shot earlier Saturday of the president and his wife boarding the plane in Warsaw.
Russian news agencies reported that pilot error was suspected. "The cause of the plane crash was apparently an error by the crew during the approach to landing," Russian state news agency RIA Novosti quoted an unnamed official in Smolensk as saying.
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev immediately appointed Prime Minister Vladimir Putin to head a commission of investigation and sent Russia's emergency situations minister, Sergei Shoigu, to the site. Related article: Putin, Medvedev send condolences
The aircraft crashed a few hundred metres (yards) short of the runway at the Severny airport outside Smolensk, ITAR-TASS news agency reported, quoting rescuers at the site.
The flight data recorders had not yet been located but experts were on the scene and the search for them was under way, ITAR-TASS said.
Kaczynski, the identical twin brother of former prime minister Jaroslaw, was on his way to attend commemorative ceremonies for the Katyn massacre, which decimated Poland's military and intellectual elite 70 years ago.
The crash occurred three days after Putin and his Polish counterpart, Donald Tusk, together attended a memorial for the victims of the massacre at Katyn.
The Putin-Tusk meeting there was seen as a huge symbolic advance in Russia's often thorny relations with Poland.
World leaders immediately expressed shock at the disaster.
French President Nicholas Sarkozy said he "conveys all his sympathy to the family of president Kaczynski and to the families of all the victims and wishes to express his deep personal condolences and on behalf of the French people."
He paid homage to his Polish counterpart as a man "driven by ardent patriotism, who dedicated his life to his country."
German Chancellor Angela Merkel said: "I am deeply shocked by the plane accident and the death of the Polish president."
"I think everyone around the world will be sending their sympathies to the people of Poland," said British Prime Minister Gordon Brown.
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50 Comments so far
Show AllIt's amazing how the airplanes and trains taken by politicians and others associated with them seem so much less safe than those taken by us "normal" people.
*Certain* politicians, at least. Especially considering that politicians and their lackeys typically have access to the best practitioners in both maintenance and operation.
Americans kill 96 Iraqis and Afghans in a few hours every single day but when 96 members of an elite perish it makes the cover of the NY Times.
That aside, weren't Wellstone and Carnahan also dispatched in plane crashes? If foul play was involved, see who profits in Poland and you have your perpetrator.
I hear you. Hell, can we get such a fortuitous plane crash here? One with the pres, vice pres, chief general warmonger McChrystal, the leaders of both the Senate and House and a few Justices would suit me just fine.
edit: Also, the Chairman of the Fed and a few Health Insurance and bank CEOs would top the cake.
As a reconstructed Englishman, I think a plane-full of in-bred Windsors (Saxe Coburg Goethe's) would constitute the ultimate fantasy elite plane crash.
LOL.
Try Mike Connell, he was going to testify how he helped to steal the 2004 election in Ohio by sending the data to his offices in Tennessee then altering the votes and sending the revised count to the Ohio Secretary of State......Another one I would have questioned was: after two crash landings of two alleged CIA Planes (One plane had been used for four rendition flights to Guantanamo.) carrying over 8 tons of cocaine, The interior Minister of Mexio responsible for the investigations of those two crash landings and his plane is flying into Mexico Ciy and as his plane is approaching its landing, the plane suddenly changes direction and nose dives into the ground.
All the planes were under 2000 feet and on their final approaches to the landing strips! How easy to control the media: Raytheon has been taking control of Boeing 707's since the mid 80's.....taking off, flying, and landing without pilots/Northrup Grumman does it too.........and look at those wonderful drones they have flying around!!!!!!!
OOOOps, I forgot the Buffalo airliner that crashed with the only woman who refused to accept the hush money for her husband's death in the attacks of 9/11....She was in the movement for an independent investigation of 9/11 and had met with President Obama before that flight. Same scenario: coming in for a landing sudden change in direction.
Then there were four jetliners being flown by four men who had no clue on how to fly them........one gets shot down and the other three hit their targets perfectly and one of those planes made a turn that no pilot could have made and the plane couldn't have withstood the turn to boot.......but, then we are conspiracy theorists and "THEY" are "The Power Elite" who have control of all mass media, the investigators, investigation or lack of, and the report creators.....We just get to blog!
Do you enjoy parroting the phrases of your rulers?
Or so you have been told.
Not free when you repeat what you're told, especially meaningless formulas like "tin-foil hat."
I will be very interested to hear from any poster who would like to suggest why and who wanted a Polish regime change?
This is a tragedy for the people who died, for their families, for the Polish people.Ironically, these people were on their way to participate in the commemoration of a greater Polish tragedy.So all you can come up with is infantile blather about "regime change"? Show some humanity.
RIGHT. SHOW SOME HUMANITY. A very dear friend, an outstanding old veterinarian and his youngest son were killed when his plane crashed due to very poor visibility weather-wise. He had NO enemies... Man does not control the weather, so let's eschew the paranoia.
Indeed, to the posters who responded to me.....
I am indeed quite a monstrous human being. Besides being an active activist for human rights, a psychologist and healer. But alas. I am ashamed of my inhumane posting here.
Mea Culpa
rita
They won't get it, Rita.
Not directed at you, Rita, but at the multitude of pop-gun conspiracy theorists who infest these pages.I do, however, think it's a waste of time hoping for some one to come up with 'proof' of a conspiracy, or ring the changes on the 'cui bonum' argument.
Though the thought of deliberate sabotage springs to mind rather immediately, I would argue against it. The Kaczynski's political record has been one of nationalism combined with conservative economic and social policy (Dubya, Cheney, & Co. quite liked them), while the Russians had just gone through the very painful public relations exercise of acknowledging and apologizing for Katyn. For Czar Putin to engineer a plane crash that wipes the Polish leadership just before the final ceremony does not serve Russian purposes at all. Russia had been having a good week: signing a nuclear arms limitation treaty with the USA, and making nice with a neighbor with whom they have a tortured history. To ruin it by engineering a crash is incompetent realpolitik, and whatever one says about Czar Putin, he does not practice that. The question that needs to be raised is who benefits from this?
My first guess would be a more right-wing faction within Poland. Poland has always been an amazingly dichotomous place: the most advanced, humane thinking in Europe side by side with the most dreadful reactionary crap. They've never been sort of ultra-conservative, sell-out politicians, saddeningly enough, which is probably why the national anthem starts out (in Polish, of course, not English) "Poland is not yet extinguished, while we still live".
Initial reports say the plane clipped the tops of trees in fog.That damned forest again.Pilot error seems likely.If that can be ruled out, then the field is open for the conspiracy theorists.In fact, it seems open already.All those hair triggers...
Lots of folks would no doubt benefit from this in ways you can't even imagine.But to assume that the crash was 'engineered' does not follow.This is elementary logic.I'm sure the black humor mill in Eastern Europe is already coming up with comments about what happens to Poles who stray in the Katyn forest.There is a cast-iron irony about all this.
"The flight data recorders had not yet been located..."
WHAT!! You mean they're actually looking for the flight data recorders??
Did the forest explode into dust? Did the trees collapse due to the intense fires? Any passports found in perfect shape implicating the fog??
THIS IS WAR!!!
As I used to say when I was a teenager- "yah, right."
...and the entire pulverized forest is now being shipped to China to be turned into a man-of-war.
We must now go shopping and not tolerate outrageous conspiracy theories!!
Never forget!!
My new cheap Chinese milling machine just paid for itself.Do the Chinese still use junks? BY all means go shopping.Be my guest.
"All were to attend a memorial service in the Katyn Forest, near the crash scene, where 22,000 top Polish officers and troops were killed by Soviet troops 70 years ago. IT HAD BEEN INTENDED TO HELP THE RECONCILIATION BETWEEN POLAND AND RUSSIA." [My EMPHASIS.]
Well, to those cynics who posted their cynicism already, I sadly join you. Conspiracy theorists? No, more likely we have read and understand far too much now to just accept this as another accidental tragedy.
My immediate reaction was, as others the same: Who does not benefit from a reconciliation between Poland and Russia? My mind ran through answers to that question.
Paul and Sheila Wellstone, staff members and, I believe, one or more of their family members, were killed in a chartered Raytheon-manufactured [significant re other crashes] plane that also skimmed treetops and nose-dived in a drizzly rain a few minutes from the airport.
Perhaps this time we cynics are wrong, but perhaps we are not.
It would be a good day not to be cynical and suspicious when something like this happens. But we sure have a long, long, long way to go before that day comes, ... if we ever get there at all.
However, sincere condolences are in order to those who sincerely grieve.
/cm
Kaczynski was a right winger and an eager helper in American Global War on Terror. Any friendly gestures he might have made toward Russia were reluctant and phony. He made plenty of hostile noise, too, like agreeing to place parts of the missile defense shield on Polish soil, and expressing disappointment when Obama cancelled it last year. He also supported Georgia during their recent war with Russia, going as far as visiting the country before the war was even over, and promising all kinds of help, including substantial financial aid.
The Russians probably considered him to be a relatively harmless fool, and Americans most likely thought he was a useful idiot. It was an accident.
One of our "Black Op's" perhaps? See what rich Oligarch gains in power or wealth from this and it will probably begin to make sense.
I believe that the entire Polish top military brass of the day was wiped out about two years ago in a plane crash. I think the planes were brand new from Spain...does anyone else remember this?
I suppose the entire leadership of a country should not get on a plane together. Haven't they heard of the Sullivan brothers from WW II?
Joe
all the officials of polish banana republic who died in crash had been supporters of military solutions to all conflicts - not only in irack and afganistan, but chechnya, columbia and so forth
they are responsible for canceling polish population's right to work, enjoyed for decades not knowing it, cutting standard of living in half coupled with doubling the production - and tenfolding unemployment - instead of taking care of this and other social ills, all they did was fabricating history and cooperating with bush militarism pushing rackets installment against rusia, as if there was 1919 again when they (right wing fraction) attacked soviet rusia
edweg
Thank you, optura/edweg
/cm
March 29, 2010 The double bomb attacks in Moscow Metro resulted in 40 deaths and scores of injuries.
April 1, 2010 US concerned over Putin's visit to Venezuela for extensive trade and political talks with left-wing Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. Venezuela is said to be interested in purchasing a range of Russian weapons, including 92 T-72 main battle tanks and an unspecified number of Smerch multiple rocket launchers.
April 3, 2010 Putin is in Venezuela as Moscow is actively seeking closer ties with South America. The two leaders discussed further military cooperation among other things.
The two sides have also discussed further cooperation in the energy sector and granting Caracas a financial credit worth as much as over two billion dollars.
Chavez reiterated that Russia will help Venezuela develop nuclear energy — a plan he has mentioned previously that has yet to take shape. Chavez and Putin plan to sign a 20-billion dollar agreement which allows Russia to tap the Orinoco heavy oil belt.
April 4, 2010 Blast derails train in Russia's Dagestan.
April 6, 2010 Russia warns US on altering missile shield plans. Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov has underlined Moscow's right to walk out of a nuclear disarmament treaty with the US should Washington alter its so-called missile shield defense system.
The pilot hit the trees on his fourth approach. He disregarded ATC (Air Traffic Control) suggestions to divert to another airport. From the postings at the AOPA (Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association) forum it appears as though neither the airport nor the aircraft had the ILS (Instrument Landing System) or avionics to handle the low-visibility conditions.
The distance from Warszawa-Okecie Airport (WAW/EPWA) to Smolensk Air Base (XUBS) is about 782 km. The TU-154 had a 5,000 to 7,000 km range, so it apparently had enough fuel to divert to another airport.
Antoine
Sometimes a plane crash is just a plane crash though given the climate of the times and all of the lies we have been fed over the past years, one can not be surprised if people look on this with suspicion.
This is why grandma said never to put all your eggs in one basket.
Hopefully this can be a fresh start for Poland, but it feels a little bit too optimistic.
This has Obama's fingerprints on it. How he could blow up a coal mine in West Virginia and then a Polish plane in Russia and not be seen is beyond me.
I'm sure someone will figure it out here on CD, though.
To the Polish people: My sincere condolences.
Ah yes, a newly westernized, capitalized, Americanized Polish elite decides to fly to an event en masse, all stuffed into the same aging Russian built airliner.
Very bright of them. Almost as smart as joining NATO and sending Polish troops to Afghanistan.
Now that the archives are open the real story of the Hitler Stalin Pact is known. It turns out that Stalin sought an alliance with Britain and France but the British and French dallied. He also requested--note "requested", not ordered--that the Poles allow the Red Army to cross Poland to meet the NAZI's on the German border.
The Poles refused to allow the Red army to cross Poland.
At that point Stalin started negotiating with Hitler, who he knew would turn on Russia eventually. He was playing for time, and as it turns out rightly.
Logically and epistemologically the Poles are among the brightest minds on the planet.
As they watch the German Capitalists laugh at them while German industrialists get vast contracts in Russia maybe some of those bright minds will realize there is a serious flaw in isolating themselves from their Russian big brother--who even sent a Pole into space once upon a time--and in playing Stepan Fetchit to the US and Western Europe.
They better hurry up though--they have long ago been judged a millstone by the Russians.
"Logically and epistemologically" you make some good points. However, allowing the Red Army to cross Poland to meet the NAZIs on the German border would have been tantamount to yet another Russian occupation of Poland. It's ridiculous to suggest that WWII could have been avoided if Poland had agreed to that. It's like saying that if Hitler was allowed to take over the rest of the world, WWII would have been avoided. Sure, it's true. If no country defended itself there would have been no war, right?
That idea reminds me of Pat Buchanan blaming Poland for WWII because they didn't want to hand over the port of Danzing to Hitler, and then blaming Britain, because they signed a Common Defense Pact with Poland in 1939. According to Buchanan, it was anybody's fault, but Hitler's. Your idea is about as valid as Buchanan's.
You have no idea what you are talking about. Nor obviously have you read the newly opened archives.
Britain and France sold out Poland, with the Poles themselves doing yeoman's work by their utter political stupidity vis-a-vis the Russians.
This information has been around since well before the opening of the Soviet archives. It's in a lot of the main stream histories from the early sixties.And yes, the Poles do seem to have an aptitude for doing themselves in.Is a new partition in the works? In the meantime, Nordstream marches on.
There is new material in the archives.
In any case, the last thing the Soviets wanted at that point was a hostile occupation of Poland.
Even the Soviet attack on Finland was motivated strictly to prevent the NAZI's gaining a willing or unwilling ally in the Finns, thus leaving Leningrad vulnerable to being completely surrounded.
After hostilities, a peace was made, and the Finns kept their word--they never supported the German attack on Leningrad, which would have spelled the fall of the city to the Germans.
Both the Soviets and the post-Soviet Russians have gone out of their way to praise the Finns for keeping their word and not joining the NAZI attack on Leningrad.
In my opinion, Poland should definitely strive for better political and economic relations with Russia nowadays. But in 1939 their choices were: German occupation, Russian occupation, or fighting to preserve their fragile independence with the help of any allies they could find. It turned out that those allies were unreliable, but they couldn't have known it ahead of time.
It seems that you would have advocated for the Russian occupation. Because they were kinder, gentler killers? (Keep in mind the European history between the two world wars.)
Instead of accusing other people of ignorance, how about trying to explain your positions? It makes for a better discussion.
To get an idea of what Poles think about this tragedy,you might want to look at the BBC's coverage of the ceremonies in Warsaw today , and the comments from ordinary people that follow.
This disaster, whether deliberate sabotage/assassination or tragic human error, could not have anything but a disastrous effect on the Polish government and nation.
The Poles have lost the entire upper echelon of their ruling class, their national leader and commander of their armed forces.
Now, vastly unprepared, relatively inexperienced and no doubt plain incompetent will start a bloody internal battle for control of what is left of the POlish government, with factions shifting and infighting as they decide amongst themselves who will be the most Darwinianly effective at political survival.
Now imagine what this would be like if YOUR government had this same disaster befall it... I think it's past time to have some empathy for the Poles in what they are about to experience.
oops! Wrong place.