Language problems may have been to blame for the plane crash that killed the President of Poland.
The Polish Air Force plane went down near Smolensk, in Russia, on April 10th. President Lech Kaczyñski, his wife and several other top Polish officials were among the 96 fatalities.
Technical failure has been ruled out as a possible cause of the tragedy, and now a Russian air controller says that the crew's poor Russian language skills may have been a contributing factor to the crash.
According to The Guardian (London), air traffic controller Pavel Plusnin told a Russian news source that he could not determine the altitude of the Tu-145 jet, as "numbers were hard" for the crew.
Others have contradicted this version of events, saying that pilot Arkadiusz Protasiuk had perfect understanding of Russian.
The plane had been advised not to land, due to thick fog on the ground, but the advice went unheeded. It collided with trees and fell to the ground, breaking up on impact and killing everyone on board.
There has been speculation that the Polish President put pressure on the pilot to land, despite the adverse weather conditions.
The "black box" recordings are expected to shed light on the conversation between the crew and ground control.
The incident has raised safety and security questions, with many asking how so many officials were allowed to travel on the same plane.
"The first task I am going to set for the new National Security Bureau chief is a review of the rules for travel of top military officials," Acting President of Poland Bronislaw Komorowski told the media last week.
18 April 2010
Go back to April 2010
