Poland's president, his wife and some of the country's most prominent military and civilian leaders died this morning when their plane crashed while coming in for a landing in thick fog in western Russia.
Russian and Polish officials gave differing death tolls but agreed there were no survivors.
President Lech Kaczynski and his wife Maria were heading to Russia's Smolensk region to mark the 70th anniversary of the Katyn massacre, where Soviet secret police killed thousands of Polish officers during World War II.
"The Polish presidential plane did not make it to the runway while landing. Tentative findings indicate that it hit the treetops and fell apart," Smolensk's governor, Sergei Anufriev, told Russian TV. "Nobody has survived the disaster."
Russian officials said the plane was carrying 96 people, while Poland's foreign ministry put the figure at 88.
Local media showed footage of the crash site, where firefighters sprayed water on smoldering wreckage strewn through a wooded area. A tail fin with Poland's red and white flag colors stuck up from the debris. The plane reportedly went down less than 400 yards from an airport runway.
There was no word yet on what caused the crash. Poland's presidential plane was a Soviet-built Tupolev TU154M, at least 20 years old. Officials have long considered replacing the Polish fleet, but said they lacked the funds. The exact plane involved in today's crash was fully overhauled in December, including repairs to three engines and updating navigation equipment, an aviation director told Russian TV. He said there was no doubt that the plane was flightworthy.
According to the Aviation Safety Network, there have been 66 crashes involving Tu-154s, including six in the past five years. Russia recently withdrew its Tu-154 fleet from service.
Also among the dead were the chief of staff of the Polish army, the national bank president, deputy foreign minister, army chaplain, head of the National Security Office, deputy parliament speaker, civil rights commissioner and at least two presidential aides and three lawmakers.
"We still cannot fully understand the scope of this tragedy and what it means for us in the future. Nothing like this has ever happened in Poland," the country's Foreign Ministry spokesman, Piotr Paszkowski, told The Associated Press. "We can assume with great certainty that all persons on board have been killed."
For some, the plane crash evoked haunting memories of the Katyn massacre.
"It is a damned place," former president Aleksander Kwas'niewski told Polish TV. "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."
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