Mysterious Smolensk air crash conspiracy theories: events, people, theories

What was Smolensk air crash theory?

During a trip to annual ceremonies marking the anniversary of the Katyn Massacre (when during the World War II over 20,000 Polish officers, previously kept captive, were killed by NKVD, the Russian secret police) the airplane with Polish president Lech Kaczynski and 95 other high officials crashed near the airport in Smolensk, Russia. Soon, the conspiracy theories pointing on Russians as the guilty part popped up.

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Events connected to Smolensk air crash

The crash

The party, including president Lech Kaczynski, his wife and other officials, was flying to Smolensk on board of Russian-built Tupolev Tu-154 airplane that was one of the official government jets. They were flying there mostly because Kaczynski was trying to avoid meeting Russian president Vladimir P...

Smolensk air crash facts

The black box

The black box and audio recording from the cockpit were retrieved and analysed. According to topography of the area around the airport, the landing strip was set in the middle of the forest and the ground around the strip was slightly lower than the surface of the strip. This was important if the pi...

People and suspects linked to Smolensk air crash

Lech Kaczynski

Lech Kaczynski was the 4th President of Poland since the end of communism in 1989. He served as president from 2005 until 2010, the time of his death in the Smolensk air crash. He and his brother Jaroslaw, the leader of Law and Justice party (PiS) were politicians with very strong views anti... well...

Smolensk air crash theories

Pilots error

The official version of the cause of the crash is that pilots took the unnecessary risk in really poor weather and low visibility. Facts that are supporting the theory: - there were previous examples of risky landings done by Polish military pilots (one of them ended in the crash of a C...

Ground operators conspiracy

The theory that ground operators (under orders from Moscow) let the plane make approach knowing that it will crash. Facts that are supporting the theory: - Smolensk airport is a Russian military airport, - there was a line of contact between Russian officials about the landing, but w...

Malfunction conspiracy

The plane that crashed was made and serviced in Russia, so there was a theory that Russian has left the special bug in the plane system that allowed them to crash the plane whenever they wanted to. Facts that are supporting the theory: - the plane was in Russia on periodic service some ...

Explosion theory

The explosion theory was built on few details - the assumption that the collision with the tree could not break the wing of the plane and that on the remainings of the plane there were particles of chemical materials that could have been used in explosives. But the logic behind the theory is highly ...