Polish Plane Crash "Investigation" & Disinformation

On the 10th of April 2010, the Polish military plane, Tu-154, was involved in a fatal crash in the city of Smolensk, Russia, killing all the crew and passengers aboard. The deaths included the Polish President and First Lady, the last Polish President in exile, the Chief of the General Staff, Commanders-in-Chief, the Chairman of the Polish National Bank, the President of the Institute of National Remembrance, as well as a number of MP's, senators and prominent figures of the Polish elite, among the 96 dead.

This incident, which includes these prominent deaths, naturally calls for a complete and transparent investigation - the natural work of international aviation agencies with extensive experience is just such investigations. Yet, on the day of the crash, the Polish government decided to leave the investigation solely in Russian hands, without securing the rights to appeal to international organizations, aviation organizations, and relinquishing the right of an inspection, or any efficient supervision over examination procedures. Specifically, the Polish government refused to consider any help from NATO, and did not attempt to gather any support from other European Union countries. As a result, all the evidence gathered has been left on Russian soil, including confidential military and security codes belonging to NATO's armies, "black boxes", and other flight recording devices containing all flight parameters. None of this evidence, as well as any debris of the wreckage, has ever been returned to Poland. Such capricious actions and obscured procedures, running contrary to both the scientific rigor and general Western trend towards transparency naturally invites wariness as to the methods and conclusions of the investigation. No detached observer, cognizant of the influence of loyalty to faction and party in overwhelming loyalty to the people and to the truth, would readily accept such results given the morass of Polish and Russian politics and diplomacy. Among the issues are the degree to which present sitting politicians may have cooperated with the SB (Polish Communist Secret Police), WSI, and KGB, and Polish dependence on Russian Oil. There is much to hide and much to lose through non-acquiescence. Consider the record to date of investigatory procedures and government actions that incline one to suspicion:
		Independent Crash Investigation Report Update from Nov. 10, 2011 is online ....
		"No one saw anything; no one heard anything; no one filmed anything; and no one recorded anything with his mobile phone!"

The death certificates of the victims are cursory, barely containing any basic information, and some certificates are missing. There is doubt (no proof has been provided) that any post-mortem examinations were ever performed in Russia; none were undertaken in Poland, as opening the coffins was strictly forbidden. Families received the bodies of their relatives in sealed coffins, under the threat that they would be prosecuted under Russian criminal law, if coffins were opened or tampered with. No medical evidence has been produced so far.

The only Polish inspections allowed were archeology and geology surveys, and these were strictly limited to narrowly outlined areas.

Usage of any specialized equipment was strictly forbidden, reducing inspections to a "bare hands" retrieval method. All these survey results were confiscated by Russian officials. There were no Polish crash investigators, criminologists or explosives experts allowed to inspect the scene.

The scene of the crash investigation has not presently been secured and may have never been secured, except in regard to keeping independent investigators out. In the subsequent days and months following the tragedy, victims' relatives and mourners of the dead gathered at the nearby Polish War Memorial for murdered Polish prisoners of war, still in deep shock and pain in the acknowledgment that human remains still remain in the field where the crash took place.

The investigation in Russia is flawed, as no impartiality can be assigned. MAK (the Interstate Aviation Committee) is closely connected with the manufacturers of the crashed Tu-154 aircraft,and is responsible for certifying both the aircraft and the airfield.

The Russian Prosecutor's Office Chief, Mr. Tchayka, is the very same man who refused the British government's attempt to investigate Alexander Litvinenko's death in the Russian Federation, and curbed their attempts to extradite the suspect of politically motivated murder.

Within days following the tragedy, there was an unprecedented media disinformation campaign - in both Poland and Russia - to cover up and blur many of the facts, such as:

1. Within minutes of the crash the Russian government, with the acquiescence of the Polish government, newly headed by Bronislaw Komorowski of the opposition Civic Platform party, stated that the crash was due to "pilot error, lack of training and poor communication skills (i.e. that the pilot could not speak Russian)" After the investigation these accusations turned out to be complete false, as the captain of the aircraft was one of the most experienced, master class pilots of the regiment, with over a thousand flying hours completed on this aircraft type. He was also well versed in the specifics of the Russian airports, ground personnel habits, all the procedures, and spoke fluent Russian.

2. False reports of four abortive landing attempts were made afterwards, though only one look-and-see attempt was made.

3. It was reported that the aircraft's left wing hit a tree with a 40 cm (16") diameter trunk. This has been officially confirmed to be false.

4. Within hours after crash, and before any inspection had been completed, the Russian and Polish governments refused to consider the possibilities of either a mechanical/equipment failure or the possibility of a terrorist attack (a reasonable possibility, in this post-9/11 world, as well as Russia's penchant for blaming so many incidents on Chechen terrorists - See "The Chechen Lullaby" Here ...).

5. Reports were filled with erroneous information about the exact time of the crash. The official time given by the Premier of the Russian Federation Ministers is over a dozen minutes later than it was finally set.

There are hundreds of examples of evidence being destroyed, or simply being overlooked and never considered for examination.

This whole investigation has been characterized by misinformation so prolific as to indicate intentional fabrication, and conscious disinformation, delivered through the main media by both Colonel Putin and the Polish Prime Minister Tusk. Even the media has been forced to acknowledge the most obvious falsehoods.

Given these irreconcilable reports, accumulating in real time, independent Polish citizens have commenced their own inquiries, using on-line sources to tease out the story. Among these are pilots, flight controllers, physicians, mathematicians, engineers and scientists from several disciplines. Their efforts established that the Russian "final cockpit recordings transcript" shows signs of editing and splicing, and note that the protocol (report) delivered by the Russian Aircraft Accidents Investigation Committee contains neither technical data nor even official source documentation of the inspection. The investigation report fails to answer the questions that independent citizen inquiries have raised. Some of its crucial statements are at variance with known facts, and it is puzzling why the report met with such an easy acceptance by Polish officials assigned to review this tragedy.

The preliminary stages of this investigation revealed that the aircraft Tu-154 was deliberately driven to the outside of the landing path. There is a hypothesis that the "meaconing" (the interception and rebroadcast of navigation signals) might have been used. Russian flight controllers insisted until the very last seconds, and reassured the crew that they were "on the course and on the approach lane". This was despite the fact that the aircraft had not been on course, on the final approach lane, throughout the whole approach look-and-see procedure.

All public protests and demands for a thorough investigation and explanation of the "catastrophe" are being refused, blocked and prevented by both the Russian and Polish governments. The Polish people want to know what happened to that aircraft: the last minutes of the flight, the crash ("emergency landing"), the mysterious loss and restoration of communications - everything that occurred, up until the public was informed about the crash and President's death.

All original recordings related to this accident disappeared in Russia. There is neither any photographic evidence being presented, nor video or audio, which would assuredly provide the answers for how this flight progressed to its fatal end. There is no electronic trace of the evidence, no eye-witness testimony of the circumstances of the crash. No one saw anything; no one heard anything; no one filmed anything; and no one recorded anything with his mobile phone.

In this situation, only the world's public opinion can force the Polish government,and the government of Colonel Putin, to disclose the documents and all the evidence. Only military services of NATO, of which Poland is a member, who may possess or have access to the satellite pictures of the accident scene, can help establish the truth.

The truth is what victims deserve. The truth is what we are obliged to deliver.

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Polish Plane Crash Analysis - International Conference In London - Vladimir Bukovsky [1]

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Tomasz Sakiewicz, the Editor in Chief of Poland’s leading opposition newspaper “Gazeta Polska”, goes on record: "The Polish president [Lech Kaczynski] was murdered!"

		"I wish that the present reality was different, that all that had happened didn’t. [I wish] that the world would return to what it once was, before April 10, 2010.  I wish, that I could have a glass of wine with Janusz Kurtyka, and was able to invite Sławek Skrzypek to that postponed dinner; or, if only once again, I could hear yet another of Stefan Melak’s tirade.  [I wish, I could just once again] gossip a little with Lech Kaczynski at the Belweder.  It will never be the same again.  Somebody stole it brutally.  But, there are 40 million Poles who were left behind – they must know the truth! The must know what is taking place in their country, who governs them, and what was done to those who wanted to govern them differently.  I am convinced, that today, I wrote the whole truth about it." Read the entire article here
Above: Tomasz Sakiewicz, Editor in Chief of Gazeta Polska

Also see:

• Independent Polish Plane Crash Investigation Report From November 11, 2011

• "'Russian Image Management' Making Unpleasant Historical Truths About Poland Disappear:
The KGB’s latest intelligence coup, and NATO’s latest intelligence disaster" by retired Central Intelligence Agency Senior scientific intelligence officer, and president of the Association of Former Intelligence Officers, Mr. Eugene Poteat

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[1] Vladimir Bukovsky - Former Soviet political dissident, author, and activist. He spent a total of twelve years in Soviet prisons, labor camps, and forced-treatment psychiatric hospitals.