MOSCOW - As of Monday, 87 corpses have been recovered by Russian rescuers at the crash site of the Polish presidential plane. The bodies are being sent to Moscow where forty-five have already been identified, the Russian health minister said. The President's body is being flown to Warsaw where it will lie in state for several days until the burial.
The Russians report that the Tu-154 aircraft carrying a delegation including Polish President Lech Kaczynski and his wife hit the treetops as the pilot tried to land at an airport near Smolensk in thick fog on Saturday morning.
As investigators work to clarify the cause, speculation about the issue remains a hot topic among Western experts.
EXCESSIVE DEBRIS
US experts are very skeptical of crash-site photos that clearly show the broken-up fuselage, wings and engines of the plane. Homeland Security experts with experience investigating the 9-11 Shankesville, Pennsylvania crash and the Pentagon crash said that it is very unusual for large planes to exist after crashing.
"Usually they just vaporize," said Special Investigator Gregory Parrot. "The blast and force of the crash just atomizes everything. You get a little smoke and maybe a small hole or gouge in the ground, but yeah, that's about it. So, we're very suspicious. There is, of course, often some small stuff, bits of paper and little aluminum shavings. You know, stuff that would fit in your pockets, but that isn't usually found for a day or two, and here they've got all this huge debris right off the bat. Something's kooky, I can tell you that!"
BBC News commentator James Minah was surprised that the explosion from the crash was not nearly as large as in the videos of the plane hitting the second World Trade Tower: "You know, when a plane crashes, you get this enormous fireball, and the fire is hot enough to melt through steel girders to bring down two huge towers like a house of cards. So I'm looking at these planes, and I just don't see the kind of damage that I'd expect. Now granted, they didn't have that little doo-dad thing on the bottom like the 9-11 plane did, but still..."
CONSPIRACY THEORIES
A number of conspiracy theories have already been conjured up in attempts to explain the disaster.
British newspaper The Fortnightly Mail quoted William Randolph Maine, a leading expert on East European affairs with the World Free Trade and Capital Council, as saying that although there is no evidence that the crash was caused by sabotage, many Poles will think foul play was involved because the events of 9-11 are so well known.
"The fact that actual bodies were found and identified immediately raises questions. There should not be any bodies when a large plane crashes. It's just very sloppy!"
