OT:

Update on the plane crash that killed Polish president Lech Kaczynski

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“The Polish presidential plane did not make it to the runway while landing. Tentative findings indicate that it hit the treetops and fell apart. Nobody has survived the disaster,” Smolensk governor Sergei Anufriev told the Russia 24 news channel.

The Polish government will hold an emergency meeting later today. Officials said the head of the Polish army, the governor of the central bank and the head of the presidential administration were also on board the plane, as well as the families of other senior officials.

“The plane caught fire after the crash,” said a Polish foreign ministry spokesman in Warsaw. “Teams began attempting to pull out passengers from the badly damaged airplane.”

The pilot was told Smolensk airport was closed because of thick fog, according to the news agency Interfax. He was offered a choice of landing instead at either Moscow or Minsk, the capital of Belarus, but decided to continue with the original flight plan to Smolensk.

The pilot made three unsuccessful attempts to land before the crash. On the fourth try the plane fell apart, Interfax said, citing officials at Smolensk’s interior ministry.

Russia’s foreign ministry confirmed the cause of the air catastrophe was bad weather. “According to provisional information the crash happened because the plane failed to land at the military airport near Smolensk in conditions of severe fog,” one official said.

How unfortunate. The pilot tried to land in heavy fog at a closed airport.