UPDATE: Polish Prez among 132 killed in plane crash

I / Moscow April 10, 2010, 13:42 IST

Polish President Lech Kaczynski was killed along with his wife and 130 others when a plane carrying them crashed while landing in dense fog in southwestern Russian region of Smolensk today.

The Tu-154 Presidential plane crashed about 300 metres from the runway after hitting tree tops in dense fog, Russia's Emergencies Ministry said.

A total of 132 people, including 60-year-old President Kaczynski and his wife Mana, were killed in the crash, Vladimr Markin, spokesman of Russia's Investigation Committee, said.

According to Russian Air Space Monitoring Service, the pilot of the plane was advised to land either in Minsk, the capital of Belarus, or Moscow because of bad weather at the airport where it crashed.

But the commander of the Presidential plane refused to land elsewhere and the aircraft crashed on its fourth attempt to land in dense fog, it said.

In Warsaw, Polish Foreign Ministry spokesman Petr Paszkowski confirmed that President Kaczynski was on board the ill-fated Tu-154 aircraft.

Kaczynski was flying with a delegation to take part in the Katyn memorial ceremonies at the site where Polish military officers were executed on the orders of Soviet Dictator Joseph Stalin during the Second World War.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev ordered Emergency Situations Minister Sergei Shoigu to personally supervise rescue work in the Smolensk region.

He also directed Prime Minister Vladimir Putin to lead the probe.