Smolensk air disaster

The flight was taking many high-ranking Polish officials to ceremonies marking the 70th anniversary of the Katyn massacre, a mass murder of Polish intellectuals, politicians, and military officers by the Soviets during World War II. The site of the massacre is approximately west of Smolensk. Smolensk North Airport is a former military airbase, presently in mixed military-civilian use. At the time of the crash, the airport was not equipped with an -compliant instrument landing system (ILS), the standard system used in most developed countries. The Polish Tu-154 was modified to use a Western-style ILS. A non-directional beacon (NDB) was installed at the airport, but such a device can be used only for non-precision approaches, where it can guide the pilot to align with the runway, but offers no vertical guidance on how to descend towards the runway. The airport was equipped also with both a surveillance and landing radar. The lowest approved visibility conditions to land (approach minimums) were cloud base and visibility . The ground visual navigation aids on 10 April 2010 were not effective. According to the Polish report, the radar was unstable and swung within ±10%. The report from the inspection flight performed on 15 April 2010 stated that the approach lamps, depending on their location and on the altitude of an inbound aircraft, can be obscured by surrounding trees and shrubs when an aircraft is at a distance of 400, 700, and 800 metres from Runway 26. The lamps of the first group (900 m) had their light filters shattered and, of three bulbs installed, only one was serviceable. The aircraft used the callsign Polish Airforce 101, operating flight PLF101. PLF is the ICAO three-letter designator for the Polish Air Force, used to identify the operator of an aircraft by air traffic control. The aircraft was a Tupolev Tu-154M of the 36th Special Aviation Regiment of the Polish Air Force (Siły Powietrzne), tail number 101. Built in 1990 at the Kuybyshev Aviation Plant as msn 90A837, it first flew on 29 June 1990. At the time of the accident, the airframe had accumulated more than 5,150 hours in 4,000 cycles. The service life of the Tu-154M is more than 25 years or 30,000 hours or 15,000 cycles (whichever comes first). All three Soloviev D-30KU-154 engines were within the service limits of 24,000 hours or 11,100 cycles. 101 was one of two Tupolev Tu-154s that served as official government jets; the other with a tail number of 102 was a year younger and at the time of the accident it was being overhauled in the Aviakor aviation plant in Samara. The 101 aircraft had undergone a major overhaul in December 2009, and Alexey Gusev, the head of the maintenance plant that carried out the work, told Polish TV that it should not have had technical problems. The crash happened 138 flight-hours after the most recent overhaul. The cockpit crew of Flight 101 consisted of pilot Captain Arkadiusz Protasiuk, 36, co-pilot Major Robert Grzywna, 36, navigator Lieutenant Artur Ziętek, 32, and flight engineer WO2 Andrzej Michalak. Protasiuk had landed at Smolensk three days earlier on 7 April in the same Tu-154; he served as first officer on that flight. Protasiuk had 3,531 flight hours, including 2,906 hours on the Tu-154. Co-pilot Grzywna had 1,909 hours, with 475 of them on the Tu-154. Ziętek had 1,050 hours, only 58 of them on the Tu-154. Michalak had only 329 flight hours, all on the Tu-154. ==Flight sequence==

Take-off and cruise Flight PLF101 There may also have been some friction between the Air Force Commander and the captain, caused by an absence in the latter of condition training. The captain and first officer's decision making may have also been affected by knowledge of a 2008 flight when the president of Poland ordered a change in destination right before departure and again while airborne. The captain and first officer had been the first officer and navigator, respectively, on that flight. Lacking charts or a flight plan for the new destination, the captain of that flight had decided he could not bring the aircraft to the new destination safely. Disobeying the president and a high-ranking Polish Air Force commander on board, the captain flew on to the originally planned destination. The Polish prosecutor's office would later clear that captain of any wrongdoing in relation to that flight, and he was even awarded a silver medal of merit for national defence. However, in the final report issued by The Interstate Aviation Committee (, )—a supervising body overseeing the use and management of civil aviation in the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS)—it was stated he had not been assigned to fly the President again since. Polish sources state he flew the President to New York in September 2008, despite objections voiced by the president. The captain involved in the 2008 incident flew the Polish prime minister to Smolensk on 7 April without the president on board, but he was removed from the crew of the 10 April flight which carried the president. Knowledge of the 2008 incident and its repercussions may have weighed on the crew of PLF101, potentially placing additional pressure on them to complete their flight to the original destination. Complicating the situation was the increased workload on the captain. Normally, one pilot flies the aeroplane while another crew member handles radio communications. On Flight 101, the responsibility for communication usually rests with the navigator. At Smolensk however the situation was different. As the airport is not usually open for international flights and is not ICAO certified, the air traffic controllers were not required to be fluent in English, the ICAO standard language for air traffic control (ATC) communication. Accordingly, all communication between Smolensk's ATC and Flight 101 was carried out in Russian. Russian law requires international flights landing at military airports to have a Russian "leaderman" (navigator; ) on board the flight, who is then responsible for this ATC communication, done in Russian. In the middle of March, as part of their request for permission to conduct the flight, Poland asked for leaderman services and the latest airport data for Smolensk. At the end of March, after apparently having received no reply to their first request, Poland tendered a second request for permission to fly, but did not request leaderman services in this second request. As a spokesperson for the Air Force Command said: "The Russian side has not confirmed readiness to secure the flight leader". According to the Final Report, however, Russia did offer leaderman services, but Poland refused, stating their crew had satisfactory knowledge of Russian and could conduct the flight without a leaderman. In reality, the captain was the only member of the crew who could speak Russian adequately. Accordingly, upon being handed off—transferred—to Smolensk ATC, the captain took over communication duties from the navigator. In a normal situation, this would dictate that the first officer be the pilot flying the aeroplane, but as the weather was bad, the captain, as the most experienced member of the crew, elected to fly the aeroplane as well. Thus, the captain was simultaneously performing two tasks that would normally be split up, dividing his attention and increasing his workload. Approach less than two days before the accident Under these stresses, the crew continued their approach pattern and readied the aircraft for final descent. Radios were tuned to the two non-directional beacons (NDBs) present at the field, and the autopilot was set up to use waypoints from the flight management system (FMS) units for navigation. The crew used their second radio to contact the Yak-40 which had landed earlier, inquiring as to the weather conditions. The Yak-40 crew replied, "Well, generally it's absolute shit here," and that, "(we) were lucky to land at the last moment." The Yak-40 crew estimated visibility was , but told PLF101, "you might try...(to make an approach)." The crew of PLF 101 acknowledged this information and continued their approach. As the aircraft approached the outer marker, the crew issued pitch commands (via the CLIMB-DESCEND wheel) to the autopilot. This is not recommended for the Tu-154, as the autopilot cannot maintain vertical speed accurately enough for the approach phase of flight; manual flight mode is instead recommended. Although the crew had not requested it, the radar controller began issuing reports to Flight 101 concerning their distance from the runway and whether or not they were on the glidepath. The Polish report noted that on multiple occasions the radar controller stated the aeroplane was on the glidepath when it was not. The terrain awareness and warning system (TAWS) fired its first audible warning "terrain ahead!" at 10:40:06. This was because the Smolensk airport, as a former military airfield not open to international flights, was not in the system's database and therefore the system did not recognise that the aeroplane was approaching an airport. Six seconds later, someone (most likely the captain or navigator) pressed a button on the captain's FMS panel commanding standard barometric pressure be set on the captain's main electronic altimeter. This had the effect of increasing the altimeter's reading by ; as the TAWS takes readings from this altimeter, this had the additional effect of silencing the warning. The captain's secondary (mechanical) and the copilot's main electronic pressure altimeters continued to read correctly. As the descent continued, the crew realised they had started descent too late. To compensate for this, they increased their vertical speed to , twice the prescribed rate for a normal approach. The aircraft did not have enough drag to maintain speed with this rate of descent, so even though the auto-throttles commanded idle power from the engines, the speed of the aircraft increased to approximately higher than specified. Approaching , the navigator began calling out the radar altimeter's reading. This is not standard practice for a non-precision approach, as the radar altimeter does not take into account the contour of the terrain around the airport. Standard practice would entail calling out the readings on the pressure altimeter, which is set according to atmospheric pressure and references the elevation of the airport. The terrain on approach to Smolensk airport is uneven and locally much lower than the runway level. Warning signs At , the engines were still at idle power. Power settings for jet engines are expressed in instrument readings and flight data recorders as percentages labelled as "N1" and "N2". N1 and N2 refer to the spools, or shafts, of a jet engine on which the compressor and turbine blades are mounted; jet engine power is measured as a percentage of maximum N1 or N2 rpm. Although the shafts are not mechanically connected, the speed of one spool can be calculated based on the speed of the other spool and atmospheric conditions. The Tu-154 manual indicates that a go-around must be initiated at 200 m if the engines are running at or below 75% N2. This is because jet engine throttle response is not linear; jet engines have to "spool up" in order to produce more thrust. At power settings higher than 78%, this response is almost instantaneous; at idle power, it can take a full 8 seconds for a jet engine to "spool up" to full power. On PLF101, the N2 values were not recorded by the flight data recorder (FDR). The N1 values were, and at 200 m they indicated 32–33% N1. 75% N2 equates to 51–52% N1 for the given conditions. Thus, the engines were well below the 75% minimum N2 reading, and the crew should have initiated a go-around at this point, even though they were still above decision height (DH). However, they did not go around, and continued the descent. The final report would later determine that a go-around was technically possible from as low as 40 m, but that 200 m was the first of many times that the crew were required to go around, but did not. At , the "terrain ahead!" warning again sounded on the flight deck. The crew continued the descent. According to IAC's report, at (decision height) there was no "landing" or "go-around" call by the captain. If this happens, the first officer is supposed to overrule the captain, take control of the aeroplane, and initiate a go-around. Poland suggests that at this point the captain said "Go around", and 8 seconds later the first officer confirmed by saying "go around" (only the second of these two statements is recorded in the official transcripts by IAC; the first one may have been obscured by a simultaneous report by TAWS). Despite these calls, neither pilot initiated a go-around, and the descent continued. One second after the 100 m altitude was reached, the TAWS alert "PULL UP" activated and continued to sound for the remainder of the flight. "PULL UP" activates only when the TAWS computer believes a collision with terrain is imminent. Thus, when "PULL UP" sounds, the crew is supposed to begin an immediate, maximum performance emergency climb (full power and angle of attack to the maximum permissible without stalling) and continue climbing until the warning stops. However, the crew continued the descent. There is a method of setting up the TAWS to prevent false warnings when flying into airports not in the database, known as "terrain inhibit" mode; however, the crew did not use it. Even if they had, an excessive rate of descent and excessive airspeed can cause the TAWS to issue a "SINK RATE" warning followed by a "PULL UP" warning. This point (10:40:40 local time, approximately 20 seconds before the collision with terrain) is also notable because this was the moment when the aircraft had crossed the minimum allowed approach slope for this airport (2°10'). Prior to this moment, the radar controller had no reason to think that the landing attempt was not proceeding normally. The behaviour of the controller was later the subject of some criticism by the Polish media. The controller remained silent for about 12 seconds after the aircraft passed the 100 m mark, and, even at that point, he did not order a go-around, but, rather issued an instruction to transit from a descent to a horizontal flight. (The decision to go around was apparently reached in the cabin of the aircraft within a few seconds of that instruction.) In addition, according to some interpretations of the radio exchange between the ground and the aircraft, the crew was instructed by the ground control to descend to and either to wait for clearance to land or request one explicitly, or to inform the ground control regarding their decision whether to land or to go around. (According to IAC's report, it meant that the crew was supposed to inform the ground control of their decision to land before passing the decision altitude, and that the ground control was supposed to allow the landing as long as the runway and the airspace were clear.) None of this ever happened, with the aircraft continuing the descent through the 120 m mark while the ground control remained silent. For the next several seconds, the crew continued to call out "100 meters" as read from the radar altimeter. The aircraft was flying into a valley at this time and descended by . The crew began calling out radar altitude every . At radar altitude (where the crew had set their radar altitude bugs), the First Officer called out "Go around" (this is the "confirmation" go around call referred to in the Polish comment above). Due to the terrain in the area, the aircraft was actually only above runway level at the time. Simultaneously to this callout, the FDR recorded a brief pull on the control column, likely done by the first officer, as he instinctively started the go-around sequence of actions. According to the investigation, this attempt at a go-around was completely overridden by the auto-pilot, which was still active, and, in any event, it was not completed (protocol requires that the correct sequence of operations during a go-around attempt involves increasing thrust to takeoff mode and disengaging the autopilot, neither action was done at the time). Flight simulator testing by the investigation concluded that had the first officer completed a go-around at this point, the crash would likely have been avoided despite the violation of minimums and the excessive rate of descent. The investigation found that this was the last moment at which a go-around could have been successful. Point of no return As the crew called out "50 meters", the controller instructed "level 101", telling the aircraft to terminate descent. At , another controller instructed "Check altitude, level." Simultaneously with this final call, the control column was pulled full aft, commanding max pitch up from the aircraft, and the throttles were moved within one second from their flight idle positions to maximum power. The aircraft, due to the valley terrain, was actually below the runway at this time. The Russian investigation surmised that at this moment the flight crew saw the trees through the fog, and instinctively reacted in an attempt to escape their grave predicament. The crew did not disengage the autopilot, but the action of commanding maximum pitch up on the control column overrode it, causing the pitch channel to disengage. The control column briefly moved to neutral at this point, then moved full aft and remained there for the duration of the flight. According to the Polish report, the command "level" ordering a change to horizontal flight was issued at a time when the aircraft was at an altitude of about above airfield level. Two seconds before the "level" command, the aircraft commander made the decision to go around. According to the Polish committee's findings, the command to level should have been issued 10 seconds sooner, when the aircraft was well below the glide path. Soon after, the aircraft began hitting trees. One, a large birch with a trunk wide, ripped off about of the left wing, including the left aileron. The resulting asymmetrical lift caused an uncommanded roll to the left. Within five seconds, the aircraft was inverted, hitting the ground with the left wing, followed very shortly after by the nose. The nose impact resulted in forces exceeding 100g, which killed everyone on board instantly. Even without the birch tree and subsequent roll, the excessive angle of attack would have led to an aerodynamic stall approximately two seconds after impact with that tree, which would also have led to a fatal accident. According to the Polish report, safety areas around every aerodrome are mandated by international regulations (including Polish and Russian law) to prevent situations where aircraft or aerodrome operation could be compromised by obstacles in the immediate vicinity. A thorough analysis of terrain reveals that obstacles were present in the safety area, with many trees exceeding the permitted height limit (mostly about ). After the nose hit, the aircraft was violently torn apart by impact forces. The wreckage came to rest upside down about before the runway threshold and slightly left of its centreline. The largest pieces remaining were the wing roots (the strongest part of an aeroplane), the wingtips and the tail section. The tail section came to rest backwards, relative to the direction of flight. A small post-impact fire ensued, but was quickly brought under control by the emergency services. The governor of Smolensk Oblast, Sergey Antufyev, confirmed that there were no survivors of the crash. Pictures from the scene showed parts of the aircraft charred and strewn through a wooded area. The Russian prime minister, Vladimir Putin, said that the bodies of those killed in the crash would be brought to Moscow for identification. Kaczyński's body was identified in Smolensk and was flown directly to Warsaw on the afternoon of 11 April. ==Investigation==

As the accident occurred on Russian soil, Russia was tasked by ICAO procedure with primary responsibility for investigation, which it carried out with international cooperation. Poland also set up its own committee to investigate the crash, and prosecutors in both countries began criminal investigations. Interstate Aviation Committee In the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), the Interstate Aviation Committee (IAC) () oversees the use and management of civil aviation. The committee's Air Accident Investigation Commission is responsible for investigating civil aviation accidents occurring in commonwealth member nations. The committee is headquartered in Moscow, Russia. This prompted a Warsaw court and a separate military investigation. Some of the unease subsequently fuelled conspiracy theories revolving around aspects of the investigation, such as Russia's decision not to return the Polish plane wreckage to Poland. Russian final accident report The IAC completed their investigation on 20 October 2010. A copy of the report was sent to the Polish authorities, who had 60 days to comment, after which the report was published on 12 January 2011. phone calls and radio transmissions. The transcripts show that communication between the ATC and PLF101 was done mostly in Russian with only a few English phrases. ==Causes==

IAC report The IAC report found the "immediate cause" of the accident was the failure of the crew to make a timely decision to proceed to an alternate airport despite being warned multiple times of the poor weather conditions at Smolensk. Another immediate cause was the descent below minimums without visual contact with the ground as well as ignoring numerous TAWS warnings. This led to controlled flight into terrain. Additionally, the IAC report found an "immediate cause" of the accident was the presence in the cockpit of the Commander-in-Chief of the Polish Air Force, which placed extreme stress and "psychological pressure" on the Captain to "continue descent in conditions of unjustified risk with a dominating aim of landing at any means." A "contributing factor" to the accident was a long discussion with the Protocol director and the crew of the Yak-40 regarding the actual weather and the impossibility of landing at Smolensk in such weather conditions. The report found this discussion caused the Captain to experience "clash of motives." On one hand he knew that landing in the reported weather conditions was unsafe. On the other hand, he faced strong motivation to land at Smolensk anyway. He expected a strong negative reaction from the president if he chose to divert the aeroplane and land at an alternate airport. Other "contributing factors" were a lack of compliance with standard operating procedures, a lack of crew resource management, and a significant gap in bad weather flights by the PIC (he had not flown in weather conditions similar to Smolensk that day in four months). Additional "contributing factors" were the Navigator calling out radar altitudes without considering the uneven terrain in the area, utilisation of the autopilot and autothrottles much lower than minimum descent altitude which did not comply with the Flight Crew Operations Manual for the Tu-154, and the late start of the final descent which caused the crew to maintain a higher than normal vertical speed. A "systemic cause" of the accident were "significant shortcomings in the organization of flight operations, flight crew preparation and arrangement of the VIP flight in the special air regiment." Official Polish government report The Polish Committee for Investigation of National Aviation Accidents (KBWLLP) published its report on 29 July 2011, also available in English and Russian. While the report stated that pilot error was the main cause of the accident, with the crew lacking adequate training in operating in adverse weather conditions, it differed from the Russian report in several aspects. Chief among these differences was a conclusion that the pilots were not placed under pressure forcing them to land at Smolensk, and that the crew decided to abort landing when they reached 100m altitude (measured by radio altimeter) and had decided to go around using the autopilot. However, it was impossible for the autopilot installed in the aircraft to conduct an automatic go-around from a non-precision approach. The Polish investigation concluded this caused a delay in executing the go-around which contributed to the crash. Another major difference was a conclusion that Russian air traffic control played a part in the accident by passing incorrect information to the crew regarding the plane's position. ATC gave distance callouts on average in advance, and told the aircraft it was on the correct glidepath when it actually was not. Furthermore, the controllers gave the "Level 101" command ten seconds after the aircraft passed the altitude where such call was supposed to be given. The Polish report also found three deficiencies regarding the Smolensk airport which contributed to the crash. One was a large number of obstacles (mostly tall trees) in the area before the runway which should have been removed to keep the protected approach airspace clear of obstructions. The second deficiency was with the approach lighting system, which was charted incorrectly and not well maintained. Many bulbs were burned out, several others were missing their lenses, and others were obscured by shrubbery. The third concern was with the airport information received by Poland, which contained incorrect information. In addition to the lighting system not being depicted correctly, the airport's location was charted approximately to the North of its actual position. Due to numerous accusations raised by the opposition party Law and Justice (PiS), who rejected the official report's conclusions, a new commission was created in 2013 which was headed by Maciej Lasek. Its task was to publish and explain all the technical evidence used in the official report. Lasek commission's produced over a hundred very detailed technical reports, maps, transcripts, photos and videos which were originally published on www.faktysmolensk.gov.pl website. Shortly after the 2015 Polish parliamentary elections the website was shut down and all documents removed by the new government, but were subsequently restored on an independent mirror. Cause of accident according to Polish report: : The immediate cause of the accident was the descent below the minimum descent altitude at an excessive rate of descent in weather conditions which prevented visual contact with the ground, as well as a delayed execution of the go-around procedure. Those circumstances led to an impact on a terrain obstacle resulting in separation of a part of the left wing with aileron and consequently to the loss of aircraft control and eventual ground impact. Circumstances contributing to the accident: • Failure to monitor altitude by means of a pressure altimeter during a non-precision approach; • failure by the crew to respond to the PULL UP warning generated by the TAWS; • attempt to execute the go-around manoeuvre under the control of ABSU (automatic go-around); • Approach Control confirming to the crew the correct position of the aeroplane in relation to the RWY threshold, glide slope, and course which might have affirmed the crew's belief that the approach was proceeding correctly although the aeroplane was actually outside the permissible deviation margin; • failure by LZC to inform the crew about descending below the glide slope and delayed issuance of the level-out command; • incorrect training of the Tu-154M flight crews in the 36 Regiment. Conducive circumstances: • incorrect coordination of the crew's work, which placed an excessive burden on the aircraft commander in the final phase of the flight; • insufficient flight preparation of the crew; • the crew's insufficient knowledge of the aeroplane's systems and their limitations; • inadequate cross-monitoring among the crew members and failure to respond to the mistakes committed; • crew composition inadequate for the task; • ineffective immediate supervision of the 36 Regiment's flight training process by the Air Force Command; • failure by the 36 Regiment to develop procedures governing the crew's actions in the event of: • failure to meet the established approach criteria; • using radio altimeter for establishing alarm altitude values for various types of approach; • distribution of duties in a multi-crew flight. • sporadic performance of flight support duties by LZC over the last 12 months, in particular under difficult WC, and lack of practical experience as LZC at the SMOLENSK NORTH airfield. ==Notable passengers==

In addition to Kaczyński and his wife Maria, and Ryszard Kaczorowski, the last president of Poland in exile, on board were the military chiefs of staff (army, air force, navy), the national bank governor, a deputy foreign minister, head army chaplains of the Catholic and Orthodox churches, head of the National Security Bureau, three deputy parliament speakers, Olympic Committee head, the civil rights commissioner Janusz Kochanowski, trade union activist Anna Walentynowicz, and at least two presidential aides and widely known national lawmakers (including core members of PiS). ==Political aftermath==

In accordance with the Polish Constitution, on the president's death his duties were taken on by the marshal of the Sejm (speaker of the lower house of the parliament)—at the time Bronisław Komorowski, who thus became acting president. ==Reactions==

Poland town hall In Poland, the public reacted with shock and grief to the disaster. Almost immediately after the news broke, tens of thousands of Poles assembled at the Presidential Palace to lay tributes, including flowers, wreaths, and candles. A week of national mourning was declared in Poland. Russia and Vladimir Putin in church File:Dmitry Medvedev - 2010 Polish Air Force Tu-154 crash.ogv|thumb|Dmitry Medvedev addresses the people of Poland. (subtitles in English from official transcript available) Hillary Clinton lays a wreath at the Katyn Cross Russian president Dmitry Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin expressed their condolences to the acting president and speaker of the parliament, Bronisław Komorowski. President Medvedev also announced that 12 April 2010 would be a national day of mourning in Russia. Chairman of International Committee of the State Duma Konstantin Kosachev said that "Katyn claimed yet more victims". Chairman of the State Duma Boris Gryzlov has expressed condolences. Twenty-three countries observed a varying number of days of official mourning; Brazil: 3, Bulgaria: 1, Canada: 1, Croatia: 1, Czech Republic: 2, Estonia: 1, Georgia: 1, Hungary: 1, Latvia: 1, Maldives: 2, Moldova: 1, Poland: 9, Romania: 1, Russia: 1, Serbia: 1, Slovakia: 1, Spain: 1, Turkey: 1, or FC Baník Ostrava – 1. FC Slovácko and Prague derby AC Sparta Prague – SK Slavia Praha in the Czech Republic. Some concern arose that Kaczyński's funeral would have to be delayed as a consequence of volcanic ash emanating from Iceland and the resulting air travel disruption in Europe. In 2018, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) issued resolution #2246 which calls Russian Federation to hand over the wreckage of the plane. == Allegations of political assassination ==

Conspiracy theories have been in circulation since the day of the accident, claiming in general that the crash was in fact a political assassination, an act of war against Poland or an elaborate coup attempt, possibly orchestrated by Russia. The range of such theories has been described by some international media as "dizzying"; from the idea that the fog around the airport had been artificially produced, to victims' bodies being doctored in fake autopsies, to the idea that explosives were planted on board the plane. Claims of explosives traces On 30 October 2012, the Polish newspaper Rzeczpospolita reported that traces of explosives had been detected by investigators in the wreckage of the Tupolev, on the wings and in the cabin. The claims were denied by Polish prosecutors—who claimed that a number of common substances could as well have produced the observed readings The author of the article in question, Cezary Gmyz, maintained that what he wrote was confirmed by four independent sources. The editor-in-chief of Rzeczpospolita published a video in which he explained that he decided to publish the article only after talking to the Public Prosecutor General, Andrzej Seremet. Seremet responded by claiming that he told the editor that the highly energetic particles detected can be of "various" origin. In November 2015, a court in Poland ruled in favour of the sacked journalists, stating that the information published in the article correctly reflected the state of knowledge at the time of publication. After the 2012 publication, there was some discussion about the trustworthiness of the handheld explosives detectors used. The Supreme Military Prosecutor's Office (NPW) announced that they examined the interior of the other Polish government Tu-154M (the one that did not crash), and during the examination the handheld explosives detectors did, in some places, signal the presence of explosives - implying that the readings of the instruments in general cannot be trusted. The manufacturer of the detector countered that the only way the detector can be fooled is when its benchmark (an element containing trace amounts of explosives, for reference) is clogged because of very high concentrations of specific substances in the surrounding air - for example, when put inside a bottle of acetone, or very close to a sample of perfume - which according to him is very unlikely to happen in the field; and even then it behaves in a way that would cause the user to notice the device is malfunctioning, because it alternates between different substances being reported instead of reporting just one of them. The results of an experiment conducted by some journalists seem to confirm that. A relative of one of the victims brought back remains of the victim's clothing and a piece of seatbelt (including the clip) from Smolensk, and sent them to the United States for private examination. The examiners did not find traces of explosives on the piece of clothing. They did, however, find traces of TNT on the seatbelt. The analysis was qualitative, stating that the substance was present but not determining its quantity. In 2017, it was announced that the British Ministry of Defence was engaged by the Polish government to examine the wreckage of the aircraft for traces of explosives. The work would be done by scientists based at the Forensic Explosives Laboratory at Fort Halstead, Kent. In early 2019, Polish right-wing weekly Sieci reported that partial results from the Forensic Explosives Laboratory were in, and that the "traces of explosives" were confirmed in the "vast majority" of a few dozens of samples that had been tested by the British so far. British air accident investigator Frank Taylor, who was involved in the investigation into the losses of Pan Am Flight 103 and British Airtours Flight 28M but did not investigate the Flight 101 crash apart from inspecting photographs presented by Antoni Macierewicz, claimed that there were explosions on board the aircraft, including in its wing, immediately before it reached the tree. According to Polish experts, trace amounts of high explosives could be present in the aeroplane due to frequent presence of military personnel on board, or as result of contamination on the ground, as the Smolensk area was a battlefield during World War II. The fact that the traces were found on some parts of the aeroplane (e.g. belts) but not on others (e.g. bodies), their trace amounts and chemical character all have been described as inconsistent with the hypothesis of an in-flight bomb explosion. The 2013 report of Maciej Lasek commission also did not corroborate the idea. For example, the bomb explosion theory is not supported by the fact that the plane's debris is concentrated in a relatively small 160x50 m area, and no parts of the plane's interior were found before the first ground contact. Birch tree Proponents of the assassination theory cast doubt on the probability of the Tu-154's left wing sustaining damage following its collision with a birch tree as described in the 2011 reports. Members of the 2011 investigations have repeatedly stressed that the fact of the plane's left wing colliding with the birch tree is an obvious one, while photographs of the birch tree in question show it to have sustained considerable damage and to contain fragments of the Tu-154. National Institute for Aviation Research simulations confirmed that the damage to the plane's left wing was consistent with a collision. In March 2015 the Polish committee published a report in which it claimed that two separate explosions took place on board the Tupolev in the last few seconds of its flight, bringing the aircraft down; a third explosion allegedly occurred after the impact with the ground. The committee's conclusions were partly based on a paper by Wiesław Binienda of the University of Akron, in which the author presented computer simulations that claimed to prove that the impact with the birch tree could not have severed the plane's wing. The paper, however, was self-published and not peer-reviewed. According to the committee's scientists – Binienda, Kazimierz Nowaczyk from the University of Maryland and Gregory Szuladziński – the direct cause of the crash was not a collision with an obstacle, but two explosions in the last phase of the flight: first on the left, by which the plane lost part of the left wing, then another inside the hull. Binienda also claimed that if an accidental crash had occurred, then the cut wingtip could not have flown over 100 metres from the tree, the Tu-154's hull could not appear to have been torn from within, and there should have been a crater in the ground as a result of the crash. Wacław Berczyński, a former software engineer at Boeing, pointed to the pulled-out rivets of the hull sheeting and claimed that this could only have been caused by an internal explosion. Starting in October 2012, an independent (financed by its participants) Smolensk Conference was organised annually in Warsaw and attended by scientists and researchers from Polish and foreign universities to provide a forum intended to introduce and discuss independent studies related to the catastrophe. The last (fourth) of these meetings was convened in November 2015 and its proceedings (with summaries and abstracts in several languages) were published in 2016 (with a letter from the president of Poland, Andrzej Duda). The Scientific Committee of the Conferences was chaired by Professor Kazimierz Flaga. The Advisory Committee included 114 academics. New foreign minister Witold Waszczykowski announced that Poland would sue Russia in a human rights court over Moscow's withholding of the wreckage. The Consul of Europe's Parliamentary Assembly designated a special investigation rapporteur who will carry out an inquiry on whether holding back the wreckage and other evidence material by the Russians is justified. On 25 November 2015, government spokeswoman Elżbieta Witek called for former prime minister Donald Tusk to be put on trial for his handling of the 2010 air disaster. Adam Lipiński, from the Prime Minister's Chancellery, accused Tusk of negligence and weakness in handling the investigation and the restitution of the wreckage. Deputy Minister of Culture Jarosław Sellin stated his absolute conviction that there were explosions on board the Tu-154 and that the real cause of the Smolensk crash had not yet been established. Polish president Andrzej Duda, from PiS, wrote a letter to the participants of the 4th Smolensk Conference that took place on 14 November 2015 in Warsaw, describing the official Russian and Polish accident reports as 'simply hypotheses' inconsistent with evidence, and stating that the investigation on the crash is not complete. In November 2015, the government shut down the faktysmolensk.gov.pl website, which had been set up by state authorities under Tusk's cabinet to explain in simple terms the findings of the official investigations. No reason was given for the website closure. In January 2018, the subcommittee claimed that a number of explosions had occurred aboard the airliner, with these claims being formalised during the presentation of their preliminary findings in February. The head of the previous commission, Maciej Lasek, dismissed the claims as "illusions" and "propaganda". In April 2018, the subcommittee published a further report which said that the plane was destroyed in a mid-air explosion, and that Russian air traffic controllers at the Smolensk air base had misled the pilots about the plane's location during its approach to the runway; this report was described as one focusing on technical issues, with Macierewicz stating that the final report was yet to be published. In June 2021 a ruling was delivered in a long trial where officials were accused of negligence in the flight's preparation. The judge stated that there were four parties directly involved in the flight preparation: the President's Office (KP), the Prime Minister's Office (KPRM), the Government Protection Office (BOR) and the 36th Special Aviation Regiment, with each of these having broken numerous procedural safeguards which would have prevented the crash. The President's Office should not have requested flight to an airport that was legally closed and not ready to accept such flights, the Prime Minister's Office should have not accepted and proceeded with the President's requests as it was not compliant with existing laws and procedures, and similar negligence was shown in the actions of the remaining two parties. The date of publication of the subcommittee's final report had been repeatedly delayed since 2016, with these delays generating a significant amount of frustration and criticism even among its members. Glenn Jorgensen, Marek Dąbrowski, Wiesław Chrzanowski and Kazimierz Grono were eventually removed from the subcommittee and published a statement in which they rejected the conclusions of the report and their authorship. PiS MEP Beata Gosiewska, who had unsuccessfully requested a written version of the final report from Macierewicz, accused him of turning the investigation into an object of ridicule and of exploiting the disaster to advance his political career. In February 2021, Civic Platform senator Krzysztof Brejza made a request to the Polish Ministry of National Defence for information on how much the subcommittee's efforts had cost; the Ministry did not furnish Brejza with these figures, leading him to bring a legal case which, in September, he ultimately won. In December, following Brejza's receipt of the information that he had requested, it was reported that around 22.63 million zlotys had been spent by the subcommittee between its 2016 inception and February 2021 despite the continued absence of the final report; in comparison, around 6.11 million zlotys had been spent between the immediate aftermath of the crash in 2010 and the publication of the 2011 reports. In April 2022, Jarosław Kaczyński stated that he had seen investigative documents in his capacity as a relative of a victim, with these documents supposedly confirming that the crash was induced deliberately; he went on to claim that the decision to bring down the plane was made "at the highest level of the Kremlin" and that the Polish government of the day covered up the truth of the matter as part of a "macabre reconciliation" with Russia. Conversely, Civic Coalition Sejm member Barbara Nowacka, whose mother Izabela Jaruga-Nowacka died in the crash, claimed that, while the documents did describe the crash as deliberate, they only did so because the investigation was politicised and had "very little to do with the real evidence". Nowacka also accused PiS of conducting a "political war on the coffins of our loved ones" and of attempting to divide Poland over "our common tragedy". The report was subsequently published the following day and essentially repeated earlier allegations that the plane was destroyed by explosives as part of a Russian assassination plot; the report's publication was marked by a press conference where Macierewicz described the events in Smolensk as constituting an act of unlawful interference by Russia. The images originally formed part of classified addenda from 2016 that discussed the burns on the victims' bodies; the author of the addendum, Marek Dąbrowski, said that his work had been retracted about a year before over disagreements with the subcommittee's work and was therefore used without his consent, and that he did not want to be associated with the actions of Macierewicz. Shortly after the report's publication, the director of the Interdisciplinary Modelling Centre of the University of Warsaw (, ICM) to whose "mathematical modelling" results the report referred on a number of subjects declared that the ICM had never participated in the work of the subcommittee and its computing resources had been used on a commercial basis for computations he described as pseudo-scientific. In September 2022 TVN24 journalist Piotr Świerczek published an extensive investigation, including interviews with members of the subcommittee and external experts, documenting numerous cases where Macierewicz manipulated their results or reports of external laboratories, and came up with conclusions which were inconsistent or contradictory to the expert assessment of the evidence. For example, the American National Institute for Aviation Research (NIAR) was hired to test whether the wing of a Tu-154 could break off upon impact with a birch tree as was reported to have happened during the disaster. The simulated collision saw the wing breaking off the plane upon impact in similar fashion to the findings of the 2011 reports. The NIAR's conclusions were completely ignored by Macierewicz and then misrepresented to prove the opposite case, namely that the wing cut through the tree without significant damage. Similar manipulations were applied to the pyrotechnical simulations of the wing, where a redacted photo was presented to fit the hypothesis that the wing suffered an internal explosion. Voice recorder analysis was interpreted by the subcommittee in complete contradiction to the conclusion of a voice analysis expert who did not confirm that any explosions could be heard. Jarosław Kaczyński denounced critics of the subcommittee's report as being "agents of Vladimir Putin|[Vladimir] Putin" during a Sejm debate on TVN24's findings, and would later use a press conference to make similar comments about there being a "powerful front" defending Putin; Kaczyński also claimed that the NIAR report would be published, but did not offer any specific timeframe for this to happen. On 4 December, a further report from TVN24 stated that the National Public Prosecutor's Office had asked several international experts to examine the bodies of eighty-three Smolensk victims, with these examinations failing to find any evidence that the victims' injuries were caused by an explosion. The experts' opinion was submitted to the Prosecutor's Office on 20 September, but the latter had yet to reach a decision on public dissemination at the time of TVN24's report. On 1 December 2022, PiS attempted to amend a planned Sejm resolution on recognising Russia as a state sponsor of terrorism in order to include a section describing Russia as being "directly responsible" for the Smolensk crash and for the 2014 shooting down of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17. All members of the opposition refused to vote on the amendment, depriving it of the required quorum; the resolution itself failed to pass after Elżbieta Witek, a PiS MP who currently serves as the marshal of the Sejm, refused to allow a vote on the earlier, unamended version. Borys Budka, leader of the Civic Coalition's Sejm caucus, accused Macierewicz of "still trying to impose his lies" about the crash and asked if he and Kaczyński were attempting to provoke a war with Russia; in turn, Macierewicz accused the opposition of being a "pro-Russian formation" unwilling to tell the truth about "Russian terrorism". On 14 December, a second attempt to pass the resolution was also boycotted since it again included an amendment attributing direct responsibility for the Smolensk crash to Russia; on this occasion however, the resolution was successfully passed, with Macierewicz thanking supporting Sejm members for making "a great decision that [broke] the previous Smolensk lies". In response to the September 2022 TVN24 report, entitled Siła Kłamstwa (The Power of Lies) in its broadcast version, Macierewicz submitted a complaint to the National Broadcasting Council where he accused the station of broadcasting "the Russian point of view" and misleading public opinion. On 30 December 2022, the head of the council announced the launch of proceedings against TVN to determine if it had broadcast "false information contrary to the Polish raison d'état and threatening public security", thereby being in breach of its broadcast licence. TVN responded by accusing the Council of trying to clamp down on journalistic criticism of the commission, and proceeded to make The Power of Lies available for free on its Czarno na białym YouTube channel. In January 2023, after TVN had decided to widen distribution of the original TVN24 report to any media outlet expressing interest, Onet, Gazeta Wyborcza, Wirtualna Polska, RMF FM, Radio ZET, and other outlets republished the report in a show of solidarity with the station. In April 2023, at a speech marking the thirteenth anniversary of the crash, Jarosław Kaczyński announced that Polish prosecutors would soon be asked to investigate it as a deliberate assassination and also suggested that Vladimir Putin should appear in the International Criminal Court in connection with the crash. Kaczyński also accused the wider world of wanting either to believe "nonsense stories" about the crash being an accident or to forget about it entirely, and stated that fully explaining "the Smolensk crime, but also [...] the Smolensk coverup" and punishing the supposed perpetrators of both acts was "one of the conditions for [Poland's] final victory" and that "every reasonable person knows [it was an assassination]... We have to convince the rest of our nation". The speech was condemned by opposition figures such as Radosław Sikorski and Mariusz Witczak as a further attempt to exploit the crash for political purposes and as "soulless cynicism". Antoni Macierewicz later used a Polish Press Agency interview to confirm that his committee was preparing a request to prosecutors. Following elections in October 2023, PiS no longer commanded a majority in the Sejm and, after a final abortive attempt to secure parliamentary support for a modified PiS-led government, a coalition of parties opposed to it came into power in December 2023. The new defence minister, Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz, signed a decision on 15 December which dissolved the subcommittee and repudiated its April 2022 report, with the ministry also announcing the appointment of a team tasked with analysing the subcommittee's activities. Subcommittee members immediately had their approvals to act on behalf of the body revoked and were asked to surrender all documentation and equipment by the following Monday (18 December). On 2 February 2024, a court ordered Macierewicz to apologise for a May 2020 tweet in which he had claimed that Donald Tusk, Radosław Sikorski, and Tomasz Siemoniak had been "harbouring criminals, the perpetrators of the Smolensk Tragedy". On 10 October 2024, Cezary Tomczyk announced the Ministry of National Defence's intention to inform prosecutors about potential criminal damage which he claimed that the subcommittee had inflicted on Tu-154M 102, the sister aircraft to the crashed Tu-154M 101. Photographs of 102 were displayed which were taken by the subcommittee in 2018 and which showed both the exterior and the interior of the aircraft to have been partially dismantled, with Tomczyk adding that this disassembly had been carried out with saws, grinding tools, and hammers. Macierewicz denied both the dismantling in general and the use of the tools described by Tomczyk in particular. On 24 October 2024, the Ministry of National Defence presented the report on the legal and professional aspects of the work of the Subcommittee for the Re-investigation of the Smolensk Air Crash. The report concluded that the subcommittee operated in a way suggesting that its only purpose was to promote a single hypothesis (an explosion on board) while disregarding any other evidence. Conclusion of the subcommittee were inconsistent with the existing evidence and laws of physics, while its work costed the state budget over 80 million PLN, including irreversible damage to a twin Tu-154 inflicted during subcommittee experiments. Opinion polls and foreign reaction In general, the assassination theory did not find much support among the general population of Poland. Since 2012, support for the notion that the Smolensk disaster was in fact an assassination generally oscillated between one-fourth to one-third of Poles. An Ipsos poll for OKO.press in May 2022 found that 52% believed that the crash was an accident, 36% believed that it was caused by a deliberate attack, with this figure including 78% of those who identified themselves as PiS supporters, and the remaining 12% were undecided. Former Ukrainian president Viktor Yushchenko also stated a belief in Russia being responsible for the crash in 2023. In a 2023 Facebook post, former Georgian president Mikheil Saakashvili also claimed that Russia caused the crash. ==In culture==

Several places in Georgia, Lithuania, Moldova, Ukraine, and Poland were named after the casualties. In addition, several films about the crash have been made. Documentary films • Solidarni 2010 (Solidarity 2010) – prod. Film Open Group, Poland, dir. Ewa Stankiewicz, Jan Pospieszalski, 2010 • Катынский синдром (The Katyn Syndrome) – prod. Channel One, Russia, 2010 • Brief uit Polen (Letter from Poland) – prod. VPRO, Netherlands, dir. Mariusz Pilis, 2010 • Katastrofa (The Disaster) – prod. and dir. Artur Żmijewski, Poland, for São Paulo Art Biennial, 2010 • Mgła (The Fog) – prod. Gazeta Polska, Poland, dir. Maria Dłużewska, Joanna Lichocka, 2011 • W milczeniu / Tragedy in Smolensk – prod. TVN, coop. BBC World News, Poland and UK, dir. Ewa Ewart, 2011 • 10.04.10 – investigative documentary, prod. Gazeta Polska, Poland, dir. Anita Gargas, 2011 • Lista pasażerów (Passenger List) – prod. Studio Gołąb for TVP1 and Rzeczpospolita, Poland, dir. Ewa Stankiewicz, Jan Pospieszalski, 2011 • Modlitwa Smoleńska (Smolensk Prayer) - prod. Telewizja Polska Kraków, Poland, 2011 • Pogarda (Contempt) – prod. Gazeta Polska, Poland, dir. Maria Dłużewska, Joanna Lichocka, 2011 • Krzyż (The Cross) – prod. Film Open Group, Poland, dir. Ewa Stankiewicz, Jan Pospieszalski, 2011 • Zobaczyłem zjednoczony naród (I Saw United Nation) - prod. Film Open Group, dir. Anna Ferens, 2011 • Smoleński lot (Flight to Smolensk) - prod. Telewizja Polska, Poland, dir. Monika Sieradzka, 2011 • Przebudzenie (Awakening) – prod. Gazeta Polska, Poland, dir. Joanna Lichocka, 2012 • Anatomia upadku (Anatomy of a Downfall) – investigative documentary, prod. Gazeta Polska, Poland, dir. Anita Gargas, 2012 • Mayday, also known as Air Crash Investigation, episode 95 - "Death of the President" – prod. Cineflix for National Geographic, Canada, dir. Su Rynard, 2013 • Polacy (Poles) - prod. Film Open Group, Poland, dir. Maria Dłużewska, 2013 • Anatomia upadku 2 (Anatomy of a Downfall. Part 2) – investigative documentary, prod. Gazeta Polska, Poland, dir. Anita Gargas, 2014 • Zamach smoleński (Smolensk Assassination) – mini series, prod. Film Open Group, Poland, dir. Grzegorz Braun, 2015-, not finished • Stan zagrożenia (In an Emergency) – prod. Telewizja Polska, Poland, dir. Ewa Stankiewicz-Jørgensen, 2020 Narrative films • Prosto z nieba (Straight off the Sky) – prod. Muflon Pictures, Poland, dir. Piotr Matwiejczyk, 2011 • Smolensk – prod. Fundacja Smoleńsk 2010, Poland, dir. Antoni Krauze, 2016 Theater • Describe the Night, by Rajiv Joseph, 2017, stage play ==See also==