Polish President Dies in Plane Crash

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I just saw the online news - the president of Poland, Lech Kaczynski, and 96 other passengers have died in a plane crash. The text below is from the BBC article, available at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8612825.stm

Spoiler

President Lech Kaczynski and scores of other senior Polish figures have been killed in a plane crash in Russia.
Polish and Russian officials said no-one survived after the plane apparently hit trees as it approached Smolensk airport in thick fog.
Russian media reports said the pilots ignored advice from air traffic control to divert to another airport.
Poland's army chief, central bank governor, MPs and leading historians were among more than 80 passengers.
Prime Minister Donald Tusk said the crash was the most tragic event of the country's post-World War II history.
The Polish delegation was flying in from Warsaw to mark the 70th anniversary of the Katyn massacre of thousands of Poles by Soviet forces during WWII.
The BBC's Adam Easton, in Warsaw, says the crash is a catastrophe for the Polish people.
He says Prime Minister Tusk was reportedly in tears when he was told.
After an emergency meeting of ministers, Mr Tusk, who runs the day-to-day business of government, said a week of national mourning had been declared with two minutes of silence on Sunday at midday.
Mr Tusk added: "The Polish state must function and will function".
A government spokesman said that according to the constitution there would be an early presidential election, and the speaker of the lower house of parliament, Bronislaw Komorowski, would be acting president.
In Warsaw, people gathered outside the presidential palace to lay flowers and light candles.
"I'm all broken up... it cannot be expressed in words," Ewa Robaczewska told Reuters news agency.
Pilot error?
The Russian emergencies ministry told Itar-Tass news agency the plane crashed at 1056 Moscow time (0656 GMT) as it was coming in to land.
Smolensk regional governor Sergei Antufiev told Russian TV that no-one had survived.
"According to preliminary reports, it got caught up in the tops of trees, fell to the ground and broke up into pieces," he said. "There are no survivors in that crash."
Polish TV worker Slawomir Wisniewski said he had seen the crash from his hotel near the airport.
"I saw through the fog, the aeroplane flying very low with the left wing pointing to the ground," he said.
"I heard something being broken and then that thudding sound. Two flashes of fire next to each other."
Russian media carried claims that the plane's crew were at fault for the crash.
"Flight controllers... suggested that the plane be forwarded to Minsk but as far as we know the crew took an independent decision to land the plane in Smolensk," Smolensk regional government spokesman Andrei Yevseyenkov told Russian TV.
Russian officials said 97 people were killed in the crash, including eight crew.
Polish officials said that 89 people had been scheduled to fly in the delegation to the Katyn commemoration, but one person missed the flight.
Mr Putin visited the crash site, after saying he would personally oversee the investigation into the crash.
"Everything must be done to establish the reasons for this tragedy in the shortest possible time," he said.
He was to meet his Polish counterpart, Mr Tusk, in Smolensk.
Russian officials said all the bodies had been recovered from the scene and were being taken to Moscow for identification.
Russia's Emergency Minister Sergei Shoigu said both of the plane's flight information recorders had been found and were being examined.
Controversial figure
The president was flying in a Tupolev 154, a Soviet-designed plane that was more than 20 years old.
Our correspondent says there had been calls for Polish leaders to upgrade their planes.
Mr Kaczynski himself had suffered scares while using the plane in late 2008, when problems with the aircraft's steering mechanism delayed his departure from Mongolia. “Any flight brings with it a certain risk, but a very serious risk attaches to the responsibilities of a president, because it is necessary to fly constantly," he was quoted as saying at the time.
But the head of Russia's Aviakor aviation maintenance company told Russian TV the plane was airworthy, after his plant fully overhauled it in December.
As well as the president and his wife, Maria, a number of senior officials were on the passenger list. They included the army chief of staff Gen Franciszek Gagor, central bank governor Slawomir Skrzypek and deputy Foreign Minister Andrzej Kremer.
World leaders including Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, US President Barack Obama, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown offered their condolences to Poland.
Mr Kaczynski's twin brother, Jaroslaw, a former prime minister and now head of the main opposition party, was said to be "devastated", an aide told AFP news agency.
Lech Kaczynski, who had fewer powers than the prime minister but had a significant say in foreign policy, was a controversial figure in Polish politics. He had advocated a right-wing Catholic agenda, opposed rapid free-market reforms and favoured retaining social welfare programmes.

May they all rest in peace. This is a great tragedy for the Polish people.

 

Crikey. That's not the sort of news you read every day.

 

Yep. The accident equivalent of a decapitation strike.

 

Rest in peace, Mr President, Mr President Kaczorowski and all other who were on board.

For those who want to see some of the now Warsaw:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=199492&id=605880947&ref=mf

 

I mean, it is a tragedy for everybody but Kaczynski. The loss of Poland's leadership elite and their experience and/or expertise is certainly a loss for Poland. On the other hand, everybody is replaceable. That's what makes democracies strong.

And then, whatever else he did for Poland, Kaczynski also was a chauvinist jerk and a not particularly sympathetic character who harmed German-Polish relations. You won't see me weeping for him. I never liked the guy, nor his idiot brother for that matter.

Point in case as far as the character is concerned: In summer 2008 Kaczynski wanted to fly to the Republic of Georgia. His pilot refused to land in Tiflis because of flight safety concerns and landed in a neighbouring country, so Kaczynski had to go to Tiflis by car. Kaczynski was outraged about that and the inconvenience involved, and accused the pilot of disobedience (personally I hold the view that as far as safety is concerned the driver/ pilot/ captain decides where to go, period).

At the time of the crash there was dense fog over the airport. The airport isn't equipped for instrument landings. The tower at Sewerny recommended to land at another airport, at Minsk. However, they are not allowed to prohibit the Polish machine from trying to land. Half an hour earlier, a Russian machine tried to land twice and then the pilot, who was reportedly familiar with the terrain, decided to return to Moscow because he considered landing to be too perilous.

Assumptions so far is that Kaczynski probably ordered the pilot to land despite the fog because he didn't want to land in Minsk. You get the idea.

 

"I mean, it is a tragedy for everybody but Kaczynski"

I'd say he and the others on the plane might be the worst off, so I find your turn of phrase quite strange, ragusa. That, or your sense of dark humor is much more acute than mine.

For now, there's little point to make any assumptions or recriminations about who is responsible or what might have been behind it. They are dead, it's tragic, other countries that use old airplanes (especially the Tu's) for official delegations have a reason to look into their aviation safety measures, and I think that's pretty much it.

 

He is in a better world now, where German chancellors don't conspire to overrun Poland whenever they fly directly from Berlin to Moscow without paying Poland a visit. He was the most obnoxious of all leaders of Rumsfeld's 'New Europe'.

Besides, the age of an aircraft is a rather negligible factor when you fly it into the ground. New plane or old plane, it's *boom* either way.

 

This is most tragic.

I'm kind of with Shaman here. While it is understandble that some did not like Kaczynski, saying it wasn't a tragedy for him seems odd. If I were to die in a plane crash, while it certainly would be a tragedy for my family, I'd imagine that such would probably ruin my day as well.

I agree, and I'd like to point out that 20 years old for an airplane isn't that old. There are thousands of commercial planes in service in both North America and Europe that carry thousands of passengers daily that are in excess of 30 or even 40 years old. And the issue isn't unique to commercial aircraft. Even the US military have older planes. The C130s have been in use since the Vietnam War, and I don't think there's a B52 that's less than 50 years old. (Meaning that all of the B52 pilots are younger than the planes they fly.)

The point is that a properly maintained aircraft that gets periodic instrumental upgrades can last much longer than 20 years.

If that is true, we can be sure he won't make that mistake again. On the surface "pilot error" seems irrefutable. Unless one wants to argue the pilot deliberately flew the plane into a tree, then obviously he made an "error" in doing so. That's true irrespective of the foggy conditions or whether or not air traffic control suggested they use another airport.

I don't know much about Kaczynski, but any reasonably intelligent person should know when to defer an important decision to a subject matter expert. I'm sure Kaczynski takes the advice of some of his top generals on military matters, for example. For the situation at hand, when air traffic control suggests it isn't safe to land, you should probably listen to them. Of course, all this is speculative at this point. We don't know that Kaczynski ordered the pilot to land, and unless the flight recorder indicates this, we may never know for sure.

It's a tragedy either way.

 

Phrasing it properly: I feel it's a tragedy to lose so many lives, but I don't necessarily extend that sentiment to the person of Kazcynski. As I said, I don't like him or his brother. While I didn't wish him ill, I don't mourn his death either. That said, mere retirement would have been perfectly ok with me.

 

The President would at times speak rather openly, but he was a gentleman, not a jerk. The same press that vilified him for his views and what else he stood for now is paying tributes and bringing up his good sides a lot different from how they were presenting him all the time he was alive. The same politicians who now seem to be mourning with the rest of the nation were joking about the lack of skill of a sniper who missed him from 200 yards. That and worse conduct was displayed by politicians and officials from the now-ruling party, to their shame, as it is they who created, heated and maintained the awful political climate in Poland.

German Foreign Minister said, "Kaczyński was a bright and energetic dialogue partner. We grieve with the Polish people. We are losing a character Europe could build upon," and that's the truth, not the shots and jabs the liberal press loved to take, also outside Poland. There was no nobler place to die for a president who fought for the memory of Katyń in a world more and more devoid of values. With him gone is his wife Mary, the former Exiled President Kaczorowski (unbroken constitutional succession under the 1935 constitution), a number of holders of high offices, people from social life, members of families of Katyń victims, the crew, the guards, 97 souls. May they rest in peace.

 

The German Foreign Minister, Westerwelle, is a lightweight and an idiot as well, but if he puts his limited resources to it he can be diplomatic, as he should in his job, after all this is about relations to Poland, not whether one likes or dislikes Kazcynski. We had, after all, plenty of those 'constructive talks' with Kazcynski.

Well, I am not a diplomat and don't need to be diplomatic. Kazcynski and his brother are/were chauvinist jerks for instrumentalising and exploiting Polish fears of Russia and Germany in Polish domestic politics. When Germany and Russia decided to build (and to pay for) a pipeline bypassing Poland, the Kaszynski's freaked out because they felt excluded, circumvented, probably encircled or threatened. Ridiculous.

Kaczynski has been credited with restoring Polish national pride. That may be so, but only by conjuring up the spectre of a potential outside enemy (i.e. Germany and Russia). Ideologically Kaczynski was a relic, his mind anchored in 1939 and the Cold War - both real and legitimate historical grievances, but historical grievances. His stance towards Russia and Germany was informed by that. This led to his closeness to America during the Bush years, since the Americans were eager to take advantage of his fears (along these lines: you are right to be concerned, as we never (it was during the neo-con heyday after all) tire to say it's always 1939, given their history and geography Poles should never trust Germany or Russia, that's why you need us - the Europeans give you wealth and trade, but we promise you safety, and to make things super safe for you we will even station troops on your soil so everyone attacking you will have to mess with us ... speaking of which ...) It handily explains why the US missile shield was to be positioned in Poland.

After entering the EU, Poland started to receive large sums of EU monies to develop it's infrastructure, to a great extent paid for by Germany - but never mind that: Kazcynski accused Germany of plotting ... whatever. Silly.

 

Don't you know that everyone, anyone is declared a saint if they die prematurely?

That said I send my condolences to the Polish people for this great tragedy.

 

Same thing here. The President and Vice President rarely travel together for exactly this reason. (Although I will concede that Air Force One is a far superior plane to the one Kazcynski was flying in.)

 

Well said, Chevalier. I am moved and impressed.

As for Ragusa's comments, such are usually resevred for a few weeks after the death of a public figure, but they seem otherwise well within the bounds of legitimate comment. I particularly liked this one:

I'm gonna be using that one a lot in the future! Ragusa, whatever your career is, you need to ditch it and become a professional writer.

 

I don't know. I think his oratory skill is well suited to the legal profession...