Polish president dies in plane crash

[longfingernails]

Breaking news

How awful. Apparently his wife, the head of the Polish National Bank, and many many others were also on board.

What makes it even more tragic is that they were going to a commemoration for people murdered at Katyn and there were, apparently, quite a few families of victims on board, too.

From Wikipedia, a list of the dignitaries killed

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Polish_Air_Force_Tu-154_crash

• Lech Kaczyński, the President of Poland
• Maria Kaczyńska, the first lady
• Ryszard Kaczorowski, the last President of the Polish government-in-exile
• Jerzy Szmajdziński, Deputy Speaker of the Sejm
• Władysław Stasiak, Chief of the Office of the President of the Republic of Poland
• Aleksander Szczygło, head of the National Security Bureau
• Paweł Wypych, Secretary of State in the Office of the President of the Republic of Poland
• Mariusz Handzlik, Undersecretary of State in the Office of the President of the Republic of Poland
• Andrzej Kremer, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs
• General Franciszek Gągor, Chief of the Polish Army General Staff
• Andrzej Przewoźnik, Secretary-General of the Council for the Defence of the Memory of Struggle and Suffering
• Grzegorz Dolniak, member of the Sejm
• Przemysław Gosiewski, member of the Sejm
• Izabela Jaruga-Nowacka, member of the Sejm
• Zbigniew Wassermann, member of the Sejm
• Leszek Deptuła, member of the Sejm
• Grażyna Gęsicka, member of the Sejm
• Sebastian Karpiniuk, member of the Sejm
• Aleksandra Natalli-Świat, member of the Sejm
• Arkadiusz Rybicki, member of the Sejm
• Jolanta Szymanek-Deresz, member of the Sejm
• Wiesław Woda, member of the Sejm
• Edward Wojtas, member of the Sejm
• Janina Fetlińska, member of the Senat
• Stanisław Zając, member of the Senat
• Janusz Kochanowski, Polish Ombudsman
• Sławomir Skrzypek, President of the National Bank of Poland
• Janusz Kurtyka, Historian and president of the Institute of National Remembrance
• Tadeusz Płoski, Bishop of the Military Ordinariate of the Polish Army
• Piotr Nurowski, President of the Polish Olympic Committee
• Ryszard Rumianek ? Rector of the Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński University in Warsaw

There's a high Polish population around here.

It may sound unfeeling, but it doesn't seem very wise to me to have so many VIPs travelling together on one plane.

Wow that will be a massive shakeup with all those VIP's. There will be a massive void of leadership.

How horrible.

Horrible news and so many important people, Poland must be in terrible shock

longfingernails- officials that replace each other are not allowed to fly together ie president and marshall of Sejm, army chief of staff and vice-chief etc.

What's even more horrible is that there were a lot of people on that plane that worked for organizations that kept the memory of Katyn massacre alive, relatives of the victims...88 members of the delegation and 6 members of crew.

Week of national mourning has just been announced and Polish people are in shock, I was watching the news and I have to say all the usual squabbling has been abandoned and the politicians are being very dignified in the face of such a tragedy.

I didn't necessarily agree with Lech Kaczynski's views, but it's horrible. And so many other top politicians, a famous leader of the fight against communism, military commanders...

Been watching this all morning. The symbolism of going to the site of the massacre of 20,000 officers for the first time only to wipe out such a chunk of the countries leadership in one go is a lot for people to get their heads round.

I predict there will be a lot of Polish anger towards Russia and conspiricy theories cropping up.

Looks like the blame is starting to fall on the pilot, I feel for his family at this time.

I expect the conspiracy theories have already started popping up

This is horrific, especially under the circumstances that they were all on that plane.

A very sad day for Poland

So sad, such a tragedy for Poland.

Only just saw about this - it is horrible.

I was so shocked to hear about this and feel very sorry for the people of Poland and their losses.

That's very sad news. I actually made a complete arse of myself today when speaking with my Polish neighbours. They were having a barbeque in the back garden (I hadn't read this story at the time) and one of them leaned over the fence and gave my son a chocolate easter egg. I speak a bit of Polish as my best friend was Polish and I went to Poland a few years ago to stay with her family. I made my son say thankyou (in Polish) and then raised my glass (I was having a glass of white wine at the time myself) and said 'cheers' but I accidentally said it in Russian instead of Polish.

His face dropped and I suddenly realised that that was probably offensive (given the history between Poland and Russia) so I tried again and this time I said 'cheers' in German. By this time he was probably wondering if I was INTENDING to offend him... I just had a bit of a verbal anxiety attack and started babbling away in Russian and German. I couldn't stop myself! He looked horrified!

For some reason I just couldn't remember the Polish word for 'cheers' and I just kept talking in Russian and German. I'm such an idiot. I'm fluent in 8 languages but I'm not particularly intelligent I'm just really into languages as I was a military brat who was raised in Germany.

I think I might offer them a few bottles of my home made wine tomorrow by way of apology and to express my condolences.

Very sad news today. My condolences to all affected by this tragedy.

is just so awful - and the symbolism of the whole thing painful beyond belief. horrendous

Devastating news.

Somebody mentioned conspiracy theories. It hit me immediately when I heard the news because of what I'd heard the morning before on BBC world service news:
shale gas revolution

My Polish neighbours are in tears.

I don't see how killing off (?) the Polish political elite could possibly interfere in the exploration and extraction of shale gas in Poland, which is done by private companies under license from the government. Programmes like exploration and extraction of natural resources tend to be long in the making and the execution. A blip like the loss of major political figures would be unlikely to bring such a project to a screeching halt.

And there's no way to manufacture fog.

Conspiracy theories make rational explanation of the unthinkable possible. They only serve a human need we feel to keep the possibility of tragedy and death in the realm of the explainable. They are rarely reliable as actual explanations of events.

I don't see any conspiracy theories cropping up yet, neither on Polish news channels or internet forums.

I think it's generally accepted that this was a tragic accident and it seems most probably pilot was to blame.

I am in Poland at the moment, staying with my parents. It's horrible. Everyone is in shock. Over 90 people were killed in this crash, all of them left families and friends behind.

We have lost the president and his wife, many members of the parliament, the head of the air forces, head of the navy, head of the bank of Poland, and many others. They were flying to a memorial service in Katyn, in memory of 20000 Polish people murdered by the Russians 30 years ago.

((

but inevitably here

Well, I didn't see any yet, and neither did my friends and family in Poland.

Dodgy planes- it's neither here or there as it seems that it the pilot was at fault for attempting to land in heavy fog at the airport unequipped with ILS.

Polish people will blame Americans and Jews- yeah, right

that it the pilot