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Poland claims to have found signs of explosion on crashed Tu-154M jet’s wing

The fragments of the crashed plane have been kept in Russia, and there have recently been no reports about new examinations

© Maxim Shemetov/TASS

WARSAW, August 9. /TASS/. Poland’s government sub-commission investigating into the Polish presidential plane crash, which occurred near the Russian city of Smolensk in 2010, has claimed to have found some signs of an explosion on the aircraft’s left wing.

"The destroyed left wing of the Tu-154M bears signs of an explosion," the sub-commission’s press service said in a statement commenting on its recent meeting held on July 25.

The statement does not elaborate whether any traces of explosives had been detected, nor does it make any assumptions as to what could have caused the possible explosion.

The crashed aircraft’s fragments have been kept in Russia. There have recently been no reports about new examinations of the fragments.

Kaszynski plane crash

A Tu-154M airliner carrying a top Polish delegation crashed near the city of Smolensk in west Russia on April 10, 2010, killing all 96 people on board including Polish President Lech Kaszynski and many other senior military and political figures. The plane’s pilots made a decision to land despite poor visibility and the absence of a visual contact with the ground. The plane crashed just several meters away from the runway.

Read also

A Polish government commission for investigation of aviation accidents found that the crash had been caused by the plane’s descending below the minimum altitude at an excessive speed in the weather conditions that allowed no visual contact with the ground, as well as the crew’s failure to timely execute a go-around maneuver. A report prepared by the commission also named the crew’s error and its failure to respond to TAWS (Terrain Awareness and Warning System) signals as the causes for the air crash, apart from the plane’s dive to an impermissibly low altitude.

However, Poland’s Law and Justice party led by Jaroslaw Kaczynski, the twin brother of the late president, did not agree with the commission’s conclusions. After winning the 2015 parliamentary elections, its members set up a new sub-commission on investigating air accidents to review the commission’s work.

Explosion theory

In April 2017, the sub-commission summarized its activities in the previous year, admitting that its members were unable to say when their mission would be completed. In addition, they also admitted that they had not yet figured out the causes of the plane crash.

Read also

Diplomat dismisses Poland’s accusations against Russian probe into 2010 plane crash

At the same time, the sub-commission claimed that the crash could have been caused by an explosion on board. However, there are no expert studies or research to prove this allegation, as the Polish prosecutors have been repeatedly saying.

Meanwhile, Maciej Lasek, the former head of the Polish government commission for investigation of aviation accidents, who participated in the activities aimed at establishing the cause of the crash in 2010-2011, said that the explosion theory was just propaganda and "fantasies of people who have never investigation into aviation incidents."

Polish astrophysicist Pawel Artymowicz also said that the explosion theory was groundless. "Experts have already figured out that there was no explosion. We know it from a great number of sources, including the voice recorder. This device could not have failed to record the sound of an explosion and the blast wave," he said.

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