Plane goes down in Russia en route to commemoration of Stalin’s victims
msnbc.com news services
updated 8 minutes ago
updated 8 minutes ago
SMOLENSK, Russia - Polish President Lech Kaczynski was killed when a plane carrying 132 people crashed in thick fog on its approach to a Russian airport on Saturday, killing everyone on board, officials said.
The governor of the Smolensk region, where the crash took place about 11 a.m. (3 a.m. ET), said no one survived.
"The Polish presidential plane did not make it to the runway while landing. Tentative findings indicate that it hit the treetops and fell apart," Sergei Anufriev said on state news channel Rossiya-24. "Nobody has survived the disaster."
Kaczynski's wife Maria, Central bank governor Slawomir Skrzypek and the chief of Poland's military Franciszek Gagor were among those on board the Tupolev Tu-154 plane, which came down as it neared the airport in western Russia.
Television pictures showed the burning fuselage and fragments of the plane scattered in a forest. The crash occurred about 1.3 miles from the airport.
"The plane caught fire after the crash. Teams began attempting to pull out passengers from the badly damaged airplane," said a Polish Foreign Ministry spokesman in Warsaw.
In the case of a president's death, the speaker of the lower chamber of parliament, Bronislaw Komorowski, takes over as head of state, Komorowski's assistant Jerzy Smolinski, told Reuters.
Katyn massacre
Kaczynski had been flying to Katyn, near Smolensk, to commemorate Russian and Polish victims of Soviet leader Josef Stalin.
Thousands of Polish prisoners of war and intellectuals were murdered at Katyn by Soviet forces in spring 1940 in an enduring symbol for Poles of their suffering under Soviet rule.
Families of those killed at Katyn were also on board the plane, the Polish government official at the airport said.
Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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