WARSAW – Polish defence minister Bogdan Klich resigned yesterday after a government report listed a litany of errors and neglect by the crew of the military aircraft that crashed in Russia last year, killing Poland’s president Lech Kaczynski and 95 others.
The long-awaited 328-page report said the crew of the TU-154 Tupolev aircraft were poorly trained and ignored crucial safety regulations. It said mistakes by Russian ground staff and poor conditions at Smolensk airport also contributed to the disaster.
“I accepted [Klich’s] resignation because he felt his further presence in the defence ministry would hamper implementation of recommendations made in the report,” prime minister Donald Tusk said.
Mr Klich’s departure from government is unlikely to have much impact less than three months before a parliamentary election which Mr Tusk’s centrist Civic Platform (PO) is tipped to win. Mr Tusk named Tomasz Siemoniak, a deputy interior minister, as the new head of the defence ministry.
However, the report, available in English and Russian as well as Polish on the website http://komisja.smolensk.gov.pl/, provides ammunition in the election campaign to Mr Tusk’s main rival, Jaroslaw Kaczynski, twin brother of the late president.
“There were serious shortcomings in the organisation of the unit [of the airforce responsible for handling VIP flights],” a member of the investigative commission, Maciej Lasek, said. “In order for the unit to carry out its tasks, deliberate decisions were made to disregard or break procedures, to conduct training not in line with training regulations . . . Pilots straight out of flying schools were accepted and no training flights were carried out.” – (Reuters)