Polish prosecution is seeking an 18-month prison sentence, suspended for four years, for Tomasz Arabski, the former head of the Polish prime minister's office who organized the April 2010 flight that killed then-President Lech Kaczynski, a Sputnik correspondent reported Tuesday
WARSAW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 14th May, 2019) Polish prosecution is seeking an 18-month prison sentence, suspended for four years, for Tomasz Arabski, the former head of the Polish prime minister's office who organized the April 2010 flight that killed then-President Lech Kaczynski, a Sputnik correspondent reported Tuesday.Arabski led the prime minister's office between 2007 and 2013. Kaczynski's Tu-154 plane crashed while attempting to land at an airfield covered in heavy fog near Smolensk, killing all 96 passengers, including eight crew members and a number of high-ranking Polish officials, on board.
"The Tu-154 was not supposed to land at the Smolensk airport. This was incompatible with the HEAD instructions [an outline of the rules for organizing flights for top officials], as the Smolensk-Severnyy airport was not ready to accept the plane with the Polish president on board ... The Polish pilots did not have up-to-date papers about the airfield, including the landing maps. They were not supposed to land on that airfield. Smolensk airport was not operational," prosecutor Przemyslaw Scibisz said.
The prosecutor has also requested a fine in the amount of some $18,500 and having Arabski barred from holding managerial and supervisory positions.
According to the Moscow-based Interstate Aviation Committee (IAC), the flight crew's decision not to reroute the plane to another airfield led to the crash.
Poland's first investigative commission, led by then-Interior Minister Jerzy Miller, came to similar conclusions, saying that the tragedy occurred because the plane was flying below the permissible altitude in poor weather conditions.
The current Polish authorities have not not agreed with the IAC report or the conclusions of Miller's commission and instead established a new commission to launch a second investigation into the crash.
