29/7 Tass 236
WARSAW, July 29 (Itar-Tass) — A decision about the place for landing of the presidential aircraft should be taken not by the captain, but by the one for who the flight is made, Head of Poland’s governmental commission investigating into aviation accidents, Minister of Interior and Administration Jerzy Miller said on Friday.
“The decision about the landing place is made not by the crew, but by the one who rents the aircraft,” Miller said.
“At the stage of choosing a dispersal field, the flight itself was not discussed, the discussion was regarding which aerodrome would be more comfortable for the chief passenger,” a comment on the report read.
The chief passenger aboard Tu-154M was the republic’s President Lech Kaczynski, who went to join the mourning activities in Katyn. Several minutes before the crash, the voice recorder fixed a phrase, which Head of the Foreign Ministry’s Protocol Mariusz Kazana pronounced in the cockpit: “As yet there is no presidential decision as to what to do next.”