Russia blames Poles for crash that killed President Lech Kaczynski

AP - Russian officials investigating the plane crash that killed Polish President Lech Kaczynski placed the blame squarely on the Poles on Wednesday, saying the crew was pressured to land in bad weather by an air force commander who had been drinking.

Kaczynski and 95 others, including his wife, died in April 2010 when their plane crashed while trying to land in Smolensk, Russia. There were no survivors.

Officials of the Interstate Aviation Commission, which investigates crashes in much of the former Soviet Union, said Wednesday that the pilots were pressured to land by Poland’s air force commander, who was in the cockpit. They said he had a blood-alcohol level of about 0.06 percent, enough to impair reasoning.

The comments were made at a news conference announcing the final results of the investigation. The report found no fault with Russian air traffic controllers.

That is likely to anger Polish officials, who have complained that previous drafts of Russia’s report should have questioned whether controllers should have allowed the plane to land in poor visibility. In December, Polish President Donald Tusk accused the Russian investigators of negligence and mistakes.

Kaczynski and his delegation were on their way to attend a ceremony commemorating the victims of the 1940 Katyn massacre, in which 20,000 Polish officers and other prisoners of war were killed by the Soviet secret police.

Efforts to cover up responsibility for the massacre have long been a significant irritant in relations between Poland and Russia. But in recent years Russia has attempted to overcome the tensions by releasing thick dossiers of documents and saying the killings were ordered by dictator Josef Stalin.

The symbolic importance of Kaczynski’s planned visit apparently increased the pressure to land despite the poor conditions.