Poland reopens investigation on 2010 Smolensk crash

Poland reopened an investigation on the Smolensk air crash in 2010 that killed then Poland's president and over 90 senior officials, Polish Defence Minister Antoni Macierewicz said Thursday.

"The scale of this tragedy is much bigger that the scale of a tragedy of individual. This is the biggest tragedy in the history of independent Poland after World War II," Macierewicz told a press conference.

"This is the biggest tragedy of an air plane in the history of international aviation," he added, enumerating the names of the victims.

Earlier in that day Macierewicz signed official documents on reopening the investigation on the crash. The investigation commission will include both Polish members who were members of the earlier investigations, as well as four international investigators, 21 people in total.

Macierewicz's stance is supported by Polish Prime Minister Beata Szydlo, who is with an official visit to London. She stated that "the Smolensk catastrophe should finally be explained. We still do not know what really happened, why it happened, so the commission has to work on it."

The Smolensk crash, which took place on April 10, 2010, involved the death of all 96 people on board during the official governmental visit to Russia.

Among passengers were then President of Poland Lech Kaczynski with his wife.

The delegation was flying to Russia to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the killing of Polish officers at Katyn in 1940.

The plane Tu-154M crashed while landing in the dense fog at Smolensk airport.

The international investigation showed that neither the air plane crew, nor the airport was prepared for landing in these conditions.

Nonetheless, the earlier report prepared by the first investigation commission, led by Antoni Macierewicz since 2010, found that the "airplane crash was a series of bombing attacks" and "the airplane fall into pieces before it hit the ground". Endit