Zarquon
Apr 10th 2010, 06:58 AM
Polish President Killed in Plane Crash in Russia
The Polish president, Lech Kaczynski, was killed in a plane
crash on Saturday as he traveled to Russia.
The plane, a Tupolev 154, crashed as it was landing in
Smolensk, killing everyone on board.
Among those on board the plane were Mr. Kaczynski; his wife, Maria; former Polish president Ryszard Kaczorowski; the deputy speaker of Poland’s parliament, Jerzy Szmajdzin’ski; the head of the president’s chancellery, Wladyslaw Stasiak; and the head of the National Security Bureau, Aleksander Szczygo.
Mr. Kaczynski had been due in western Russia to commemorate
the anniversary of the murder of thousands of Polish officers
by the Soviet Union at the beginning of World War II.
Source (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/11/world/europe/11poland.html?hp)
Reactions
The crash came as a stunning blow to Poland, killing many of the country’s top leaders and reviving, for some, the horror of the Katyn massacre.
“It is a damned place,” former president Aleksander Kwas’niewski told TVN24. “It sends shivers down my spine. First the flower of the Second Polish Republic is murdered in the forests around Smolensk, now the intellectual elite of the Third Polish Republic die in this tragic plane crash when approaching Smolensk airport.”
“This is a wound which will be very difficult to heal,” he said.
Former president Lech Walesa (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/w/lech_walesa/index.html?inline=nyt-per), who presided over Poland’s transition from communism, cast the crash in similar historic terms.“This is the second disaster after Katyn,” he told the news channel TVN-24. “They wanted to cut off our head there, and here the flower of our nation has also perished. Regardless of the differences, the intellectual class of those on the plane was truly great.”
The plane was a Tupolev (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/business/companies/tupolev/index.html?inline=nyt-org) Tu-154, designed by the Soviets in the mid-1960s, and officials had long complained about the country’s aging air fleet. Former prime minister Leszek Miller (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/m/leszek_miller/index.html?inline=nyt-per), who survived a helicopter crash in 2003, told a Polish news network he had long predicted such a disaster.
This is why infrastructure should be upgraded in a timely and organised manner.
How ironic, terrible, and shocking.
The Polish president, Lech Kaczynski, was killed in a plane
crash on Saturday as he traveled to Russia.
The plane, a Tupolev 154, crashed as it was landing in
Smolensk, killing everyone on board.
Among those on board the plane were Mr. Kaczynski; his wife, Maria; former Polish president Ryszard Kaczorowski; the deputy speaker of Poland’s parliament, Jerzy Szmajdzin’ski; the head of the president’s chancellery, Wladyslaw Stasiak; and the head of the National Security Bureau, Aleksander Szczygo.
Mr. Kaczynski had been due in western Russia to commemorate
the anniversary of the murder of thousands of Polish officers
by the Soviet Union at the beginning of World War II.
Source (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/11/world/europe/11poland.html?hp)
Reactions
The crash came as a stunning blow to Poland, killing many of the country’s top leaders and reviving, for some, the horror of the Katyn massacre.
“It is a damned place,” former president Aleksander Kwas’niewski told TVN24. “It sends shivers down my spine. First the flower of the Second Polish Republic is murdered in the forests around Smolensk, now the intellectual elite of the Third Polish Republic die in this tragic plane crash when approaching Smolensk airport.”
“This is a wound which will be very difficult to heal,” he said.
Former president Lech Walesa (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/w/lech_walesa/index.html?inline=nyt-per), who presided over Poland’s transition from communism, cast the crash in similar historic terms.“This is the second disaster after Katyn,” he told the news channel TVN-24. “They wanted to cut off our head there, and here the flower of our nation has also perished. Regardless of the differences, the intellectual class of those on the plane was truly great.”
The plane was a Tupolev (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/business/companies/tupolev/index.html?inline=nyt-org) Tu-154, designed by the Soviets in the mid-1960s, and officials had long complained about the country’s aging air fleet. Former prime minister Leszek Miller (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/m/leszek_miller/index.html?inline=nyt-per), who survived a helicopter crash in 2003, told a Polish news network he had long predicted such a disaster.
This is why infrastructure should be upgraded in a timely and organised manner.
How ironic, terrible, and shocking.