Investigators are to release the dramatic, and tragic, recordings of the last moments of the TU-154 flight which crashed in Smolensk, western Russia on Saturday killing Lech Kaczynski and 95 others.
 
The pilots flying the presidential plane knew the crash was inescapable, says Poland’s chief prosecutor Andrzej Seremet. It has not been specified, however, whether the passengers were conscious of the impending disaster.

Recordings from the retrieved black boxes will be released, save for personal content, Seremet said this morning. Military prosecutor Colonel Zbigniew Rzepa has called the recordings “dramatic”.

“On the basis of data accessed by the prosecutors we may assume that the crew onboard the plane was fully aware of the inevitable catastrophe, if only for the fact that they had felt the jolt of the aircraft’s wing hitting the trees,” Seremet told radio TOK FM.

The crew knew about this from three to five seconds before hitting the ground, assuming that such an aircraft lands at a velocity of 150-180 meters per second, said the chief military prosecutor, Colonel Krzysztof Parulski. The precise time can be determined only after the technical investigation has been completed, stressed Seremet. (aba)