Crash kills Polish president

10th April 2010

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Rough copy update: Polish president Lech Kaczynski has been killed in an airplane crash in Western Russia.

The presidential flight carrying 96 senior government minister and dignitaries was approaching Smolensk airport in thick fog when the accident happened Saturday morning. There were no survivors.

According to reports the aircraft was circling the airport when a wing hit trees causing the plane to crash. But Russian news agencies have reported pilot error could be behind it. "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 the Russian region of Smolensk as saying.

Russian prime minister Vladimir Putin has said he will personally head a special committee set up to investigate the crash.

Kaczynski was flying to Russia to meet Putin at the 70th anniversary of the Katyn massacre in which 20,000 Polish officers were killed by the NKVD in 1940.

The crash comes just days after a breakthrough in relations with Russia, when Putin became the first senior Russian official to attend a commemoration of the massacre, joining a ceremony at the site with Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk on 7 April.

The importance of the occasion is reflected in the rollcall of those who were on the plane with Kaczynski.

Travelling with the president were: his wife Maria; General Franciszek Gągor, head of the armed services; Sławomir Skrzypek, president of the National Bank of Poland; Władysław Stasiak, head of the presidential office; Andrzej Kremer, deputy foreign minister; Jerzy Szmajdziński, deputy speaker of the Polish Sejm, former defence minister, and candidate for presidential elections this year; Krystyna Bochenek, deputy leader of the Senate; Przemyslaw Gosiewski, former deputy prime minister; Aleksander Szczygło, head of the National Security Council; 14 members of parliament; and Janusz Kochanowski, the national ombudsman.

Military figures who were on board included the heads of the army, navy, air force, and special forces. Others on board the plane included relatives of those killed at Katyn, Ryszard Kaczorowski, Poland's last president-in-exile and many leading historians.

The 60-year-old Kaczynski was a controversial politician known for his homophobia, his fight against corruption, his fierce patriotism and persistent badgering of others over Poland's fate during WWII and its aftermath. 

The son of a resistance fighter, he and his twin brother Jaroslaw were child actors and appeared in the 1962 film The Two who Stole the Moon. 

After studying law at Warsaw University, Kaczynski entered politics joining the anti-communist Solidarity movement alongside Lech Walesa. 

Following the collapse of communism in 1989, Kaczynski was elected to Security Minister by the then president Walesa who later fired him when the pair fell out. Walesa today said that the president’s death was “an unimaginable tragedy.”

In 2001 Kaczynski founded the conservative Law and Justice party (PiS) with his brother. 

While serving as Mayor of Warsaw, Kaczynski banned the Warsaw gay parade in 2004 and 2005 saying: "If that kind of approach to sexual life were to be promoted on a grand scale, the human race would disappear."
Instead he organised a Parade of Normality. 

In 2005 he became president, his brother became prime minister and the so-called Twin Republic began. 

The couple embarked on a campaign of fierce anti-corruption and fierce nationalism often offending foreign dignitaries in the process. 

Kaczynski was famously opposed to signing the Lisbon Treaty and he and his brother often came into conflict with the EU - Jaroslaw Kaczynski once told Germany in a row over EU voting rights that if Germany hadn't invaded Poland would have a much larger population and more voting power. 

But despite these sometimes unnecessary gaffes, the president was widely respected for his determination and resilience in defending Polish nationhood.

He had been flying to Russia to take part in the 70th anniversary of the Katyn massacre in which 20,000 Polish officers were murdered by the NKVD. 

The event has long been a sore point between Moscow and Warsaw with Kaczynski often demanding an official apology from the Russian head. None came.

The Tupolev plane the president and his men were flying in was over 20 years old. There had long been talk of replacing them especially following an incident which left Kacynski stranded in Japan for 48 hours when his plane broke down while on a head of state visit.

Upon hearing the news, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk is reported to have broken down in tears.
The two men had often argued sometimes to the point of embarrassment especially on the European stage where the conservative, anti-EU Kaczynski often found himself at odds with the more liberal, pro-EU Tusk.

But this morning Tusk called an extraordinary cabinet meeting and flew from his home in Gdansk to the capital Warsaw.

Clearly upset, the PM told a hastily convened press conference: "I am personally shocked and devastated. This is very personal for me. But the Polish state must and will function. I am united in pain and sorrow on this most tragic day with everyone in Poland and beyond."

The acting president of Poland is now Bronisław Komorowski, the speaker of the Sejm.

Komorowski was in late March selected by the governing party as its candidate to compete with Kaczyński in presidential elections due late in the year.

Former president Aleksander Kwasniewski has told Polish media that, under the Polish constitution, presidential elections must now be held with 74 days.

"In line with the constitution, we will have to hold an early presidential poll," government spokesman Pawel Gras said.

Lech Kaczynski is survived by his daughter Marta and grand daughter Ewa.

Reaction:

World leaders have been sending their condolences as Poland tries to come to terms with the air crash that has effectively wiped out a huge swathe of the country’s political elite.

"I think the whole world will be saddened and in sorrow as a result of the tragic death in a plane crash of President Kaczynski and his wife Maria and the party that were with them," British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said. "We know the difficulties that Poland has gone through, the sacrifices that he himself made as part of the Solidarity movement. We know the contribution he made to the independence and the freedom of Poland."

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said she was "deeply dismayed by the plane crash and the death of the Polish president.”

French President Nicolas Sarkozy in a statement paid tribute to Kaczynski. "Lech Kaczynski devoted his life to his country. A tireless defender of the ideas in which he believed, he always battled with conviction for the values that founded his entry into politics: democracy, liberty and the fight against totalitarianism."

"I, like all Russian citizens, have accepted with deep and sincere shock the news of the tragic death of the Republic of Poland's President Lech Kaczynski, his wife, and the members of the large Polish delegation near the city of Smolensk, who were on their way for commemorations in Katyn," the Kremlin's press service quoted Russian President Dimitry Medvedev as saying.

In Warsaw, large crowds have began gathering outside the president’s official residence as they struggle to come to terms with the loss of their president and First Lady.

Families have been laying flowers and shedding tears.

Warsaw resident Adrianna Parowska said: “It’s a great shock because the elite of our nation went there to remember the dead from 70 years ago and right now Poland is really in trouble. We are all in shock and our thoughts are with the families of the dead. Actually it’s very hard to say anything.”

Another Warsaw citizen said: “I came here to light a candle because the best president we’ve ever had has died. It’s true. I’m sorry.”

With the Polish flag flying at half-mast questions are already being asked about the cost-saving measures which meant the country’s one and only presidential jet had been in service since 1990.

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