Yahoo – AFP,
27 March 2015
Warsaw
(AFP) - Pilot error was to blame for the 2010 crash of a Polish presidential
jet in Russia, but two Russian air traffic controllers also triggered the
disaster that killed Poland's then head of state, prosecutors in Warsaw said
Friday.
The
aircraft went down in thick fog while approaching Smolensk airport in western
Russia killing 96, including then president Lech Kaczynski, his wife, the
central bank head and military chief of staff among others.
One of the
Russian controllers charged with "being directly responsible for having
endangered air traffic... while the other is charged with unintentionally
causing an air traffic disaster," Warsaw's chief military prosecutor
Ireneusz Szelag told reporters.
He said
Poland would take steps to bring the two unnamed Russian citizens to justice,
but declined to provide any further details.
The
prosecutor presented a minute-by-minute expert analysis of the events leading
up to the crash, regarded as Poland's worst peacetime disaster.
Russia has
so far refused to hand over the plane's wreckage to Polish authorities,
insisting its investigation into the disaster is ongoing.
Warsaw has
extended its investigation until October 10.
Many
high-profile Poles died when the Russian-made Tupolev Tu-154 airliner went down
in thick fog April 10, 2010, while approaching Smolensk airport in western
Russia.
The
delegation was en route to memorial ceremonies in Katyn for thousands of Polish
army officers slain by the Soviet secret police in 1940, a massacre the Kremlin
denied until 1990.
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