December 2010
Accident report
- Smolensk crash complaint
- 12 January 2011
- By Various
- Polish investigators looking into the air disaster in Smolensk last year plan to complain about Russia's alleged mishandling of the probe at a new EU civil aviation club.
Speaking to the Polish Press Agency in Brussels on 19 January, Edmund Klich, a Polish lieutenant who worked with Russia's Interstate Aviation Committee (MAK) on the Smolensk crash, said he will bring detailed grievances to a meeting of the European Network of Civil Aviation Safety Investigation Authorities in Cologne in April.
"It's about raising awareness at the EU level about problems in the crash investigation relating to Annex 13 and problems in co-operating with the Russians, so that people in the EU know that it's not so easy to work with the Russians," he explained.
Russia took sole custody of the investigation under a 1947 international agreement, the Chicago Convention, Annex 13 of which says it is obliged to share all documents with Poland and to take its observations into account in the final report.
The MAK report, published last week, put all the blame on Polish pilots without mentioning Poland's concerns regarding the quality of the Russian airport in Smolensk and mistakes made by Russian air traffic controllers.
The European Network of Civil Aviation Safety Investigation Authorities was created last September to advise EU institutions, make EU-wide air safety recommendations and promote best practices in investigation procedures.
The Smolensk crash, which killed former Polish president Lech Kaczynski and 95 other senior Polish officials and relatives, is a hot topic in upcoming Polish elections, with the opposition Law and Justice Party, led by Lech Kaczynski's twin brother, Jaroslaw Kaczynski, accusing the government of being soft on Russia for the sake of better relations.
