The weather was very bad that day and the plane took off anyway.
No one can deny what happened at Katyn Wood during World War 2 when Stalin murdered thousands of Polish officers.
But the Poles were planning a major commemoration of the massacre that day and there was pressure on the crew to take off for the next planned stop.
The Katyn location is inside Russia near Smolensk. Putin was the first Russian leader to fully admit Soviet guilt and released records including Stalins signed order. He invited the Poles to the site for the 70th anniversary of the murders.
The Polish VIP transport squadron had a hard date to arrive and would have been angered had the crew diverted to a safer field in the weather. The same leader had the pilot court martialed (acquitted) two years before for not landing where the president demanded despite conditions. This was that pilots first VIP flight after that. The Air Force Chief kept intruding into the cockpit and demanded they not divert.
The airport had an old soviet instrument landing system that did not include altitude and did not mesh with modern ILS.
The aircraft in question was upgraded to western ILS standards.
They pushed forward with the landing despite terrain warnings and warnings from a plane landing just ahead of them. Upon getting the terrain warning they delayed a go around for 30 seconds. At 45 feet above the trees they initiated an unsuccessful go around. They hit the trees, a wrong severed and the plane rolled and exploded killing everyone.
Putin has the horrific movie “Katyn” broadcast nationwide followed by an accurate historian discussion afterwards, Polish investigators were fully involved as they owned the plane. Russian investigators were involved as it was a Tupolev and the crash was in Russia.
This is ultranationalist Pole conspiracy theory pushed by the dead leaders twin brother.
To say this was a murder, you need to think Russia admitting guilt for Katyn and hosting a 70th anniversary event was an elaborate set up. And that they somehow planted explosives in the Polish plane. And it was all done so Putin could insanely murder a new group of Polish leaders at the Katyn site. Then playing that brutal movie nationwide and reinforcing soviet guilt was a cover story.
But this is the mentality we are dealing with now. Anything to beat those war drums.