Black box recordings from Lech Kaczynski’s plane made public

Poland’s Interior Ministry has published a transcript from the black boxes that were on board the troubled TU-154 that went down near Russia’s Smolensk with late Polish President Lech Kaczynski in April.

Forty pages of the document transcribe all conversations between the flight commander, co-pilot, flight attendant, air traffic controller at Severny Airport near Smolensk and other persons who were entering the cabin during the flight for over 40 minutes before the fatal crash. The last thing the black boxes recorded was an explicit word in Polish.

The Interstate Aviation Committee prepared the transcripts and on May 31, Russia passed the copies of the recordings to the Polish side. After consulting with its General Prosecutor’s Office, Polish government took a decision to make the transcript public due to intense speculations about them.

The document is available in Polish and Russian and can be found at the Polish Ministry of the Interior and Administration.

On April 10 this year, a TU-154 from the Polish presidential air fleet was attempting to land at Severny Airport in bad weather conditions. It crashed just a few kilometers from the airport. All 96 people on board – from the Polish political elite, including President Lech Kaczynski and his spouse, as well as the flight crew – were killed.

Meanwhile, several dozen employees from Warsaw’s special air fleet have filed their resignations, Gazeta Wyborcza reports. Pilots, flight engineers and other staff responsible for maintenance of aircraft for the Polish top brass say changes to the pension system was the reason for the move and deny it was linked to the air crash.