More than eight years after a devastating plane crash in western Russia that killed Poland’s president at the time, Russia said on Thursday that it would allow Polish authorities to once again access the wreckage.

While the incident has been officially blamed on pilot error amid extremely thick fog, conspiracy theories have abounded in Poland suspecting that Russia could have been responsible for the crash.

Polish representatives will be able to examine the wreckage of the Soviet-designed Tu-154 passenger jet for four days in September in coordination with Russian specialists, according to a statement by Russian federal investigators.

The crash near the western Russian city of Smolensk in April 2010 killed all 96 people aboard, including Polish president Lech Kaczynski, His wife Maria, top army brass and the central bank governor and other senior officials.

Poland’s Committee for Investigation of National Aviation Accidents has said the crash’s immediate cause was because of descent below the minimal altitude amid “weather conditions which prevented visual contact with the ground.’’

In 2016, Marek Pasionek, a Poland Deputy Prosecutor General, argued that Russia’s refusal to return the plane’s wreckage was a critical obstacle.

“The crucial evidence remains in Russia and I don’t expect to have access to it any time soon,” Pasionek said.

Russia has said the wreckage cannot be returned until its own criminal inquiry is concluded.

Kaczynski and his entourage were travelling to a ceremony to mark the 70th anniversary of the Katyn massacre, when Soviet secret police killed thousands of Polish officers in a forest in western Russia.

(dpa/NAN)