The new conservative Polish government will reopen the investigation into the Smolensk plane crash in Russia of 2010, which saw the death of 96 people, including then-President Lech Kaczyński.

“We are completing work on the appointment of a new Committee for the Investigation of National Aviation Accidents [...] and the issue related to the Smolensk tragedy will be examined by a competent, honest and willing team of professionals – from Poland and abroad – which is ready to get to the truth of the matter,” Defence Minister Antoni Macierewicz said.

The committee could be led by Dr Kazimierz Nowaczyk, the TVN broadcaster reported.

Nowaczyk was part of the so-called Macierewicz commission, a group of parliamentarians mainly from the then-opposition Law and Justice (PiS) party which concluded in a 2014 report that the Tupolev 154 plane was brought down by an explosion.

This was in stark contrast to official Polish and Russian military reports on the causes of the tragedy, which happened in dense fog on approach to a military airfield lacking ground identification radar. The former report cited a catalogue of errors on the Polish side, while also pointing to errors made by Russian staff at the control tower of Smolensk Military Airport. The Russian report placed all the blame on the Poles.

The wreckage of the plane has never been handed over by Russia to Polish authorities. (rg/nh/rk)