Communiqué, Polish Subcommittee for Reinvestigation of the Smolensk Crash
On July 28, 2020, at the request of members of the Civic Coalition, a meeting of the parliamentary national defense committee was convened. The meeting was devoted to the activities of the Government Subcommittee for Re-investigation of the Causes of the Smolensk Disaster (Subcommittee). The head of the Subcommittee, former head of the Ministry of National Defense Antoni Macierewicz, presented a video documentary and a communiqué on the status of the investigation.
According to the Subcommittee, the evidence proves beyond any doubt that explosions took down the Polish Tupolev in Smolensk on April 10, 2010 with the Polish President Lech Kaczynski and the Polish leadership on board. Proofs of explosion can be found on the one hand in the nature of the damage to the structure of the plane and the scattering of its fragments, and on the other hand, by the injuries to the victims. "The scale of passenger injuries is much greater than might have been expected - 45 percent of the victims experienced multiple fragmentation of the body; 74 percent of the victims had no clothes, either wholly or partially. Very severe burns occurred in 47 percent of the victims, most of whom were found outside of the area of ground fire, even at a distance of more than 50 meters. Many victims have been found to have foreign debris stuck into their body - shards of sheathing, glass, and even fragments of a steel bearing," it is reported on the video presentation. On the basis of the conducted research and analyzes, the Subcommittee concluded that such injuries could not have occurred just as a result of the plane colliding with the ground.
In-depth analyses of the destruction of the left wing of the Tu-154M also point out to the explosion. Shortly after the explosion in the left wing, a second explosion took place in the center wing of the plane, near the compartment where Generals were sitting. "It was this explosion that killed the passengers in the Generals’ compartment, scattering their remains in the range of 100 meters, blew up the left passenger door and destroyed the left center wing so that its first spar, blackened from the explosion, flew 80 meters to the northeast, and the rear part of the fuselage, behind the center wing with the sides folded outwards, fell 50 meters behind the explosion site, the Subcommittee concluded.
The dispersion of the parts of the construction testifies to the "rapid disintegration of the plane in the air." It was noted that "some of the fragments also bore characteristic traces - micro craters on their surface - corresponding in shape and size to the traces on the fragments, which were formed after the pyrotechnic experiment carried out by the Subcommittee. This feature is characteristic of damage caused by detonation," it was reported in the presentation of the Subcommittee.
There were also allegations that Russians who investigated the cause of this crash tried to conceal evidence of explosions in Tupolev. The first Polish Commission led by Miller and Lasek was accused of not "actually investigating the Smolensk tragedy." Instead "The Miller/Lasek Commission wanted to satisfy the expectations of the Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk and Russian President Vladimir Putin to conform to the Russian report. Hence, they carried out a negligible amount of research. Important expert opinions and information were omitted or falsified in accordance with the assumption made in advance," stated the Subcommittee.
Already during the first night of the crash, the Russians were removing the most important pieces of evidence from the crash site, that is, the remains of the Polish President’s Tupolev, TU-154M. Parts of the aircraft were transported away without any prior planning, and some of them were purposefully destroyed. Read more here
"Russian Image Management"
The trip to Smolensk was expected to highlight Russia finally admitting culpability in the massacre, after long having blamed it on the Germans, an atrocity they had tried to conceal for over 70 years.
As for the reception committee, it had different ideas. Putin wasn’t looking forward to such an occasion. Into this poisonous reception brew was President Kaczynski’s well-known public criticism of Moscow and Putin, a habit that has ended the lives of others within Russia – and abroad. A few discouraging Russian requirements – that Kaczynski could not attend in any official capacity – did not halt the Poles. Kaczynski would go anyway on non-official, “personal” business. To Russians, such a distinction would be meaningless, not lessening the possible international excoriation of such an event. A problem ripe for a modern, Russian solution: a tragic, ‘natural’ accident.
World-renowned forensic pathologist goes on the record: "I have been doing autopsies for 50 years, and I've investigated more than fifteen, twenty airplane crashes […] I've been in countries all over the world where families think that the government is hiding something. Whether it is Zimbabwe or Israel, or Philippines, the government may not like an outside person checking to make sure they got it right. [But,] they never interfered with that. The family, the next of kin, always has the right to do what the wishes of the family are. In the 21st century, the body of the dead person no longer belongs to the state. It belongs to the family. So, it is unusual - something that I have never experienced before - where the government [of Poland] has not permitted the famil[ies]" to conduct independent forensic examinations of their loved ones' remains [...] I've never heard of a body coming back to a country and the family being unable to open up a casket. I've never heard of the family not being able to get an autopsy… Read more here
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