Smolensk commission says it confirms recording of apparent explosion

The commission spoke out after private radio station RMF FM suggested the commission had contradicted claims made by the minister on Saturday.

“In relation to the erroneous information in RMF FM's broadcast on 19 October 2017, [the commission] states that it fully confirms Defence Minister Antoni Macierewicz's claims about the nature of the events recorded by one of the flight recorders,” the commission said in a statement.

RMF FM on Thursday morning said: “A few days ago, the defence minister said that one of the flight recorders from the presidential Tupolev registered an explosion and that work was underway to rule out any other interpretation of that recording”.

The radio station also said that the commission had said “something entirely different”.

On 10 April, 2010, a Polish presidential plane crashed at a military airport in Smolensk, western Russia, killing all 96 on board, including then-President Lech Kaczyński, his wife, and other top brass.

A new commission to reinvestigate the crash in April said that the plane was probably destroyed by a mid-air explosion and that Russian air traffic controllers deliberately misled Polish pilots about their location as they neared the runway.

The new commission was set up by the governing Law and Justice (PiS) party, which came to power in 2015.

The party is headed by Jarosław Kaczyński, twin brother of Poland’s late President Lech Kaczyński.

PiS has long challenged an official report into the crash issued by the previous Polish government which cited a catalogue of errors on the Polish side, while also pointing to errors made by Russian staff at the control tower of Smolensk Military Airport.

A Russian report placed all the blame on the Poles. (vb/pk)

Source: IAR