Polish president Lech Kaczynski one of 96 people killed in a plane crash

Lech Kaczynski, the President of Poland, was killed in an aeroplane crash yesterday near Smolensk airport, Russia, while part of a delegation comprising political, economic and cultural figures from Poland.

A further 96 people died in the crash, including Aleksander Szczyglo, chief of the National Security Office, former Deputy Prime Minister Izabela Jaruga-Nowacka, an advocate for gay rights in Poland,and Anna Walentynowicz, whose dismissal in 1980 from shipyards in Gdansk ignited the strike that led to the formation of the Solidarity movement.

The delegation was travelling to Russia to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the Katyn massacre, where Soviet secret police executed 15,000 Polish officers during the Second World War.

Among the passengers, according to the Guardian, were relatives of victims of the massacre.

Prime Minister Donald Tusk told the BBC that the crash was the most tragic event of Poland's post-World War II history.

Today, President Kaczynski's body has returned to Poland, where a two-minute silence was held to mark the deaths.

Meanwhile, Russian and Polish investigators have begun to analyze evidence from the plane's flight recorders, according to the New York Times. Russian prime minister Vladimir Putin says he will oversee the investigation.