Lech Kaczynski

On April 10, 2010 a plane accident near Smolensk Russia killed President Lech Kaczyński and his fellow 95 passengers and filled Poland with countrywide mourning. The aircraft departed for Smolensk North Airport when flying conditions became so dense with fog that it led to a deadly plane crash.

A Polish high-level delegation sought to attend a 70th commemoration at the site of Katyn Massacre amid Soviet secret police executions of Polish military officers along with intelligentsia personnel during World War II. The accident took place only several kilometers from where the Katyn Forest is located thus giving the event a haunting symbolic significance to Lech Kaczynski.

The highest ranking military figures in Polish forces including Chief of General Staff and heads of the navy army and air force made up part of the victim list.
Research revealed pilot mistakes alongside insufficient visibility together with deficient air traffic control communication as contributing elements leading to the crash. The accident lead to strained political relations between Russia and Poland and domestic political disputes in Poland about guarding official representatives such as Lech Kaczynski.

President Lech Kaczyński who served as president since 2005 also functioned as a conservative nationalist and previously headed the administration of Warsaw. His passing became the first documented European head of state plane crash death since World War II. The national tragedy led Poland to organize a fast presidential election because of which the political direction of the country shifted decidedly during the subsequent years.