The panel concluded that the injuries suffered by all 96 victims were typical of a major aviation accident. They resulted from powerful mechanical forces as the aircraft broke apart, rather than an explosion, the Gazeta Wyborcza newspaper said.
Prosecutors established the panel in 2019, while the conservative Law and Justice party (PiS) was in power. It included forensic specialists from Poland and research institutions in Switzerland, France, Denmark and Portugal.
The experts completed their work in August 2024 and submitted their final opinion, written in English, the following month.
Sworn translators subsequently prepared a Polish version. The victims’ families have been allowed to examine the document in a secure office for several months.
The panel found that the victims died from extensive injuries to multiple organs. These were caused by impacts involving hard, blunt objects and fragments with sharp edges, consistent with the breakup of an aircraft during a crash.
The experts said none of the injuries differed from those normally seen in aviation disasters.
Earlier autopsies also found no signs associated with a blast wave or intense heat, such as extensive burns, damaged eardrums, singed hair or carbon monoxide in the blood.
The panel also reviewed laboratory examinations carried out after the victims’ bodies were exhumed. These included tests conducted by Forensic Science Northern Ireland in 2019 on swabs taken from the remains.
No explosive residue was detected in any of the samples. The experts concluded that the tested material had not been in direct contact with explosives.
The findings support the conclusions of the state aviation accident commission led by Jerzy Miller, which published its report in 2011.
It found that the aircraft descended too low while attempting to land in dense fog, struck a birch tree with its wing and crashed near Smolensk North Airport in western Russia.
The commission found no evidence of an explosion.
A separate team of experts appointed by prosecutors and led by aviation specialist Antoni Milkiewicz reached the same conclusion in 2018.
The cause of the disaster has remained a major political dispute in Poland.
PiS politicians repeatedly challenged the conclusion that it was an accident and promoted claims that Russia had carried out an attack.
Some also accused the government led at the time by Donald Tusk of sharing responsibility.
After PiS returned to power, the National Public Prosecutor’s Office ordered the exhumation of all the victims and commissioned further examinations.
Then-Defense Minister Antoni Macierewicz also established a separate commission to reinvestigate the crash. Its work cost more than PLN 30 million (EUR 7 million, USD 8 million), Gazeta Wyborcza reported.
The Polish Air Force Tupolev Tu-154M plane crashed on April 10, 2010. President Lech Kaczyński, first lady Maria Kaczyńska, senior state officials, military commanders and lawmakers were among those killed.
The delegation was traveling to Russia to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the Katyn Massacre, in which Soviet secret police murdered thousands of Polish military officers and members of the country's elite during World War II.
(rt/gs)
Source: IAR, PAP