Passengers of the Polish president’s plane, photo: A.SKieterska

Passengers of the Polish president’s plane which crashed near Smolensk knew they were going to die, analysis of a black box shows.

A member of the investigation team has revealed that there was dramatic speech and horrific screams on the flight deck, moments before the Tupolev-154 hit the ground in dense fog killing 96 passengers and crew, including the President of Poland Lech Kaczynski and the First Lady Maria Kaczynska.

“In the final seconds of the flight the black box, situated in the cockpit, registered a growing noise coming from passengers’ compartments. At the end we could hear an inhuman cry of horror and pain”, an investigator has revealed.

The scream came from behind the cockpit – a crew compartment, presidential compartment and two other rooms, where the last Poland’s President in exile, members of the Chancellery of the President and military commanders were seated.

Earlier, it was revealed that three to five seconds before the crash the pilots were aware that it was unavoidable, judging by their dramatic conversation. 

Victims’ cry is important evidence in the investigation of what could cause the crash. Investigators and prosecutors will synchronize the dramatic speech and screams from one black box with flight parameters recorded by another black box in order to calculate the exact moment of the crash. (mg)

Source: Dziennik Gazeta Prawna