Russian air traffic controllers were under pressure, made a number of errors and failed to warn the Polish pilots that they were off course, a Polish commission investigating the Smolensk air crash said on Tuesday.
It did not say exactly who had exerted pressure on Russian traffic controllers at the time when President Lech Kaczynski's plane crashed in western Russia.
Interior Minister Jerzy Miller said he hoped lessons would be learned from the crash.
"I believe it is not only in Polish but also in Russian interests, in the interest of everyone who will be landing at Severny Airport, to draw conclusions from the tragedy," he said.
The CIS International Aviation Committee (MAK) released a report on January 12 citing pilot error as the main cause of the tragedy that occurred when the presidential plane hit trees while landing in thick fog near the city of Smolensk.
Polish experts and officials have criticized the report for lacking in evidence.
Miller said, in particular, it was inappropriate to speculate on what Polish Air Force chief Andrzej Blasik was doing onboard and whether his presence might or might not have affected the crew.
The MAK report asserted that Gen. Blasik's presence in the cockpit was a strong contributory factor to the crash and that it "had a psychological impact on the crewmembers and influenced their decision to land in any conditions."
"We were surprised by the mention of Gen. Blasik's name because it is a passenger's name. In cases like that passengers are not subject to the kind of analysis that was conducted and made public by the Russians," Miller said.
The Tu-154 that crashed near Smolensk was carrying Kaczynski and other senior Polish officials to a ceremony to honor Polish officers killed by Soviet secret police in 1940.
WARSAW, January 18 (RIA Novosti)
