Poland Seeks to Put Issue of Kaczynski Plane Wreckage Return on Int'l Agenda

Poland seeks to include the issue of return to Warsaw of the Tu-154 aircraft, which crashed near the Russian city of Smolensk in 2010 killing then-President Lech Kaczynski, on the agenda of international organizations, Poland's Deputy Foreign Minister Konrad Szymanski said Monday.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) — Szymanski assessed the whole issue of wreckage return as unsatisfactory, adding that the situation had not changed over several years.

"We are looking for opportunities to include this issue not only in the Polish-Russian agenda, but also on the agenda of international organizations," Szymanski told Polsat TV channel.

Szymanski assessed the whole issue of wreckage return as unsatisfactory, adding that the situation had not changed over several years.

On April 10, 2010, a Polish jet airliner carrying Kaczynski, his wife and officials crashed amid heavy fog as it attempted to land at an airfield near Smolensk. All 96 people on board died in the crash. The Moscow-based Interstate Aviation Committee said that the flight crew’s decision not to reroute the plane to an alternative aerodrome had led to the crash.

In February 2016, the Polish Defense Ministry said that Warsaw would restart its investigation into the crash from the very beginning.

On December 23, Russian President Vladimir Putin touched on the subject of the plane crash during his annual press conference. He said the bodyguard had demanded to land the plane, though the pilot said it was impossible.

Shortly after, the Polish authorities demanded that Russia provide cockpit voice recorders, claiming they were unaware of the recordings. Moscow in its turn said all the recordings had been studied with the participation of Polish experts and transferred to the Polish side.