PANO Smolensk House of Commons 1

On the 2nd of June 2017 in the Thames Pavilion at the House of Commons in London’s Palace of Westminster, a conference on the Polish State plane crash at Smolensk will take place. The organiser and chairman of the conference is Dr Marek Laskiewicz, Leader of PWWB, residing in the United Kingdom, son of a Polish officer, researcher and author of many historical publications, notably "Smolensk Air Crash 10-4-10, official facts, scientific analysis" whose analysis will be presented during the conference too. This book has been deposited in the British Library, the Polish National Library and the Library of the United States Congress and has also been submitted for review in the Aerospace journal of the Royal Aeronautical Society.

In addition Dr Marek Laskiewicz has presented his thesis about this plane crash during numerous lectures in Warsaw, Cracow and London. The results of his studies were published in the British media, including The Times and The Economist, and the specialist Polish press.

The special guest at the conference will be David Gleave, civil and building engineer at Loughborough University, a specialist air crash investigator, an independent expert of inter alia the disappearance of Malasian Airlines MH370.

Dr Marek Laskiewicz was born and educated in the United Kingdom; he graduated with a degree then doctorate at Queen Mary College, University of London. He is also a Chartered Engineer and an Associate of the Royal Aeronautical Society.

Science Conference

During the conference Dr Marek Laskiewicz will present his analysis of the plane crash at Smolensk. During the meeting the results of scientific research will be presented in the lectures.

The crash of the Polish government plane at Smolensk – which killed 96 people, comprising the Polish President Lech Kaczyński and his wife, the last Polish President in exile Ryszard Kaczorowski, Deputies of the Polish Parliament and Senate, a group of Polish MP’s, commanders of all branches of Armed Forces of the Republic of Poland, employees of the Presidential Chancellery, the heads of state institutions, clerics, representatives of Ministries, veterans and social organizations as well as accompanying persons, constituting the Polish delegation at the commemorations of the 70th anniversary of the Katyn massacre and the crew of the plane – has not as yet been properly investigated.

The official, Russian explanation of this crash was published on 12 January 2011 by the MAK Committee, and according to its report, the direct cause of the crash was the pilots’ decision not to land at a backup airport but instead at Smolensk to descend to below the minimum landing altitude despite TAWS warnings. It was also asserted that the Commander of the Air Force in the cockpit was able to exert psychological pressure on the pilots in their decision whether to try to land in bad weather.

Following the onset of the investigation, the then Polish Government was criticised for agreeing to let the Russians investigate the disaster under the Chicago Civil Aviation Convention of 1944, instead of jointly with the competent Polish authorities and ideally with an international commission. 

In 2011 it was reported that Polish investigators had completed their crash investigation of the plane taking into account the possibility of a bomb, but however had found no evidence of this. Moreover the petition of the Katyn Family Association 2010, addressed to the European Parliament, was in 2012 rejected by it. All the previous research by the Poles – among them the MP’s and Senators of the Polish Law and Justice Party, who created a Parliamentary Group to Investigate the Causes of the Tu-154M Plane Crash of 10 April 2010, and whose chairman to this day is Antoni Macierewicz – has not to date explained the causes of this plane crash despite the widest support of professors and doctors in the field of science and engineering trying to advance the study of this catastrophe.

In the opinion of Dr Marek Laskiewicz, the investigation into this matter should be conducted openly since the lack of this has led to the creation of many contradictory hypotheses about this catastrophe. The key and novel aspect in this matter is his analysis based solely on the official facts reported by the Russians in their MAK report. The Polish results of their investigation were not used in by him in this. Moreover it is also important that his analysis presented in his book is purely scientific, so it is in the form of a disaster report.

Please would you kindly confirm your attendance to marek.laskiewicz@pwwb.co.uk

Date:

2nd June 2017 from 6.30pm to 10.30pm

Address:

Thames Pavilion, House of Commons,

London SW1A 0AA.