Smolensk air disaster

Rare card · No. 59794

On 10 April 2010, a Tupolev Tu-154 aircraft operating as Polish Air Force Flight PLF 101, crashed near the Russian city of Smolensk, killing all 96 people on board. Among the victims were the president of Poland, Lech Kaczyński, and a number of senior Polish military officers, Polish government officials, and members of the Polish clergy, as well as relatives of victims of the Katyn massacre. The group was arriving from Warsaw to attend an event commemorating the 70th anniversary of the massacre. The pilots were attempting to land at Smolensk North Airport in fog, with visibility reduced to about 400 metres (1,300 ft). The aircraft descended far below the normal approach path until it struck trees, rolled, inverted and crashed into the ground, coming to rest in a wooded area a short distance from the runway. Both the Russian and Polish official investigations found no technical faults with the aircraft, and concluded that the crew failed to conduct the approach in a safe manner in the given...

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