MOSCOW (Sputnik) — No signs of possible explosion on board Polish president's Tu-154M plane prior to deadly crash have been discovered during the joint investigation, the Russian Investigative Committee said Thursday.
Poland's new commission investigating the circumstances of the 2010 crash in Russia that killed then-Polish President Lech Kaczynski said Wednesday it has concluded that the destruction of the aircraft's left wing had signs of an explosion.
"It is absolutely unclear on what evidence the Polish experts base these conclusions. No signs of the impact of explosives on the plane were found immediately after the catastrophe during ballistic and explosive technical tests," the committee's spokeswoman Svetlana Petrenko said.
Despite that, Petrenko said, both Russian and Polish experts came to an unequivocal conclusion back in 2011 that it was the collision with the birch tree that led to the beginning of the destruction of the aircraft, and there was no damage to the plane before the collision.
Later in 2016 the Polish side gathered a new commission to investigate the crash. Last April it issued new materials placing the responsibility on Russian air traffic controllers. The materials also said that a blast hit the jet before it hit the ground.
Kaczynski's plane crashed in 2010 as it attempted to land at an airfield covered in heavy fog near Smolensk. None of the 96 passengers, including eight crew members and a number of high-ranking Polish officials, survived.
