IAC Chair to Meet Polish Commission Chief Probing 2010 Presidential Plane Crash

MOSCOW (Sputnik) — The chair of the Interstate Aviation Committee (IAC) has agreed to meet the head of Poland's commission investigating the deadly 2010 presidential plane crash in western Russia, the IAC said in a statement Tuesday.

"In response to the Polish Ministry of National Defense's Smolensk plane crash investigation sub-committee chairman's official request, IAC Chair Tatiana Anodina expressed her consent to host [Waclaw] Berczynski at his request," the IAC said.

The commission's plan to visit Moscow at an as-yet undetermined date was disclosed to Polish media over the weekend by Kazimierz Nowaczyk, the deputy head of the commission.

On April 10, 2010, the Polish Air Force Tu-154 jet airliner carrying Poland's then-President Lech Kaczynski, his wife and 88 military, parliament, banking and religious officials crashed amid heavy fog as it attempted to land at an airfield near the Russian city of Smolensk. All 96 people on board died in the crash.

The Moscow-based IAC said in a 2011 report that the flight crew’s decision not to reroute the plane to an alternative aerodrome led to the crash. In early February, the Polish Defense Ministry said that Warsaw would restart its investigation into the crash from scratch.