Investigators in Warsaw probing the fatal 2010 crash of a Polish presidential jet in Russia have slammed Moscow for refusing to allow the plane wreckage to be reconstructed.

The wreckage of the Polish presidential plane shortly after the crash. Photo: Wikimedia Commons/staszewski/CC BY-SA 2.5

A Polish commission probing the disaster, in which President Lech Kaczyński and 95 others were killed, accused Russia of “ill will or an absolute lack of competence in investigating air catastrophes,” Polish Radio’s IAR news agency reported.

According to the commission, the foreign ministry in Moscow has said it would be impossible to reconstruct the plane from fragments collected at the crash site in Smolensk, western Russia, "without disturbing them, changing their appearance and specific features."

The Polish commission added that the International Civil Aviation Organization recognises that reconstruction of wreckage is “extremely important and helpful” in determining the causes of an air crash.

The Polish commission investigating the disaster was set up after the Law and Justice party – headed by the late President Lech Kaczyński’s twin brother, Jarosław – came to power in late 2015.

Claims of mid-air explosion

Last year the commission said the presidential plane was probably destroyed by a mid-air explosion and that Russian air traffic controllers deliberately misled Polish pilots about their location as the jet was approaching the runway of the Smolensk military airport.

Law and Justice has long challenged an official report into the crash issued by the previous government in Warsaw that cited a catalogue of errors on the Polish side, while also pointing to errors made by Russian staff at the control tower of Smolensk airport.

A Russian report placed all the blame on the Poles.

(pk/gs)

Source: IAR