Polish President killed in plane crash

The Polish leader Lech Kaczynski is dead, along with his his wife, the head of the Polish central bank, the army chief of staff, head of the National Security Office, and various other senior government officials. The high profile group’s flight, from Warsaw to the Russian city of Smolensk, crashed as it attempted to land in a thick fog, officials said. There were no survivors among the 96 people who were aboard the plane, a Tupolev 154. “We still cannot fully understand the scope of this tragedy and what it means for us in the future. Nothing like this has ever happened in Poland,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Piotr Paszkowski said. Poland’s parliament speaker has become the acting president, and has declared a week of national mourning. The group was traveling to Russia to commemorate the anniversary of the Soviet Union’s murder of thousands of Polish officers at the beginning of WWII.

CBC News