You're reading: Poland: Russians made mistakes in 2010 plane crash (updated)

WARSAW, Poland (AP) — A Polish report into the 2010 plane crash in Russia that killed President Lech Kaczynski and 95 others says Russian air traffic controllers gave incorrect and confusing landing instructions to pilots, a finding that could test already strained ties between the neighbors.

It challenges a Russian aviation commission report that put sole blame for the disaster on Polish officials — and struck Poles as an attempt to avoid any responsibility for the plane crash in heavy fog at a rudimentary airport near Smolensk.

Since then, Poles have eagerly awaited their own government’s findings, hoping it would create a more balanced picture of the crash. The accident on April 10, 2010, killed dozens of senior officials along with the president and first lady, in the worst Polish disaster since World War II.

The Polish report does not shy away from putting much of the blame on Polish officials and procedures. As key causes of the crash it cites insufficient training of the pilots to fly the plane, a Tupolev 154.

It also cites a lack of cooperation among the crew and an overly slow reaction to an automatic terrain warning system that warned pilots they were flying too low.

The main pilot was inexperienced, and as the only crew member who spoke much Russian, was overwhelmed by the difficult conditions, the report said.

But it insisted Russian air traffic controllers played a role in the tragedy, too. Polish investigators found that the Polish plane was flying about 60 meters (200 feet) lower than the pilots believed in the moments before the plane clipped a tree and crashed.

The Polish commission said the Russian air traffic controllers gave the pilots information that allowed them to continue in the false belief that they were on course.

The Polish report also said the Russian air strip had insufficient lighting, contributing to a lack of visibility that morning.

Russian investigators said in January that the Polish pilots faced undue pressure from political officials to try to land the plane in heavy fog — a hugely sensitive issue.

They said a Polish air force general who had alcohol in his blood entered the cockpit and pressured the pilots to risk a dangerous landing.

The Polish report differs on that point, too. It says it did not find such pressure and that pilots were not actually trying to land when they clipped the tree and crashed. They had instead abandoned one landing attempt and were circling the area to try to determine whether they should make another attempt, it says.

The plane crashed when Kaczynski and his delegation were on their way to honor some 22,000 Polish officers killed during World War II by Stalin’s secret police, a crime known as the Katyn forest massacres.

The symbolism of the plane disaster occurring on a mission to remember the Katyn dead added another layer of Polish national grief in the weeks and months after the crash.

At first it seemed the accident had helped Poland and Russia heal some of their historic wounds, because an outpouring of sympathy by Russians was met by Poles with much gratitude.

But the Russian report again strained relations, adding to a lingering sense of aggrievement in Poland. Poles remain bitter about the Katyn massacres, the Soviet Union’s occupation of Poland’s eastern half during the war and Moscow’s domination of Poland during the Cold War.