Some say it was the curse of Katyn. On Saturday, President Lech Kaczynski and his wife perished, along with a planeload of political, military and church leaders, a few kilometres from Stalin's massacre of thousands of Poland's political, military and church leaders 70 years ago. The forest of Katyn, near the Russian city of Smolensk, whose victims the President and his fellow passengers came to commemorate, claimed Poland's elite for the second time.

The 1940 murder of some 20,000 captured Polish officers, teachers, engineers and priests, as Hitler and Stalin divvied up Poland at the start of the Second World War, was initially ascribed to the German invaders. Framing the Nazis was easy. They did commit unspeakable atrocities in the region; it just so happened that Katyn was a Communist crime. The Russians finally came clean in 1990, shortly before the Soviet Union collapsed, but even the successor regime of the Russian Federation stopped short of classifying Stalin's slaughter of prisoners at Katyn a war crime, sidestepping thorny questions about rehabilitating victims and prosecuting surviving perpetrators.

By the time Poland's presidential jet started its descent to Smolensk field on Saturday, the point was moot. On the 70th anniversary of the Katyn massacre, the youngest surviving perpetrator would have been about 90 years old. But while prosecuting ex-Communist war criminals wouldn't have been on the Polish President's mind, keeping alive the memory of both Communist and Nazi war crimes would have been. In a sense, it was his key agenda.

The twin brothers Lech and Jaroslaw Kaczynski, children of former Polish resistance fighters, governed their country with a keen sense of history, not necessarily appreciated by people with a past. This included Poland's next-door neigbours, both west and east, as well as some of their own Polish countryman. Lech as president and Jaroslaw as justice-and prime minister were for truth and reconciliation; but while many Europeans stressed reconciliation, the Kaczynski brothers put some emphasis on truth. They weren't as keen to let bygones be bygones as some political opponents in Russia, Germany or the European Union.

The brothers Lech and Jaroslaw used to be child-actors (their movie was called The Two Who Stole The Moon) and both were given to somewhat dramatic statements. Jaroslaw once remarked it was getting so Poland would have to apologize to Germany for the Second World War, while Lech suggested, quite seriously, that the Polish vote in the EU should be increased by the value Germany diminished Poland by attacking it in 1939. Europhiles say this nearly wrecked the Lisbon Treaty; euro-skeptics respond that it's a pity it didn't.

If the Germans had reservations about Poland's President, the Russians would probably have loathed him. During the brief Russo-Georgian war of 2008, Kaczynski flew to the Georgian capital Tbilisi to lend moral support to President Mikheil Saakashvili. Some sources say on that occasion, as commander-in-chief, Lech Kaczynski ordered his Polish military pilot to land, even though air traffic control advised landing in Tbilisi was too dangerous.

Vladimir Putin of Russia has frowned on people for less. Giving moral support to Putin's enemies during wartime isn't a recipe for a long and uneventful life.

Recounting this isn't to lead up to conspiracy theories. The Kaczynski twins had opponents, even enemies, and some weren't very nice people. However, there's no reason to think, and certainly no evidence to suggest, that any country's secret service sabotaged President Kaczynski's plane.

Aside from everything else, assassination is rarely a choice when time itself is taking care of matters. For better or worse (probably worse), the brothers' rule in Poland was ending. The President would have had to stand for reelection in the fall, and his challenger, parliamentary Speaker Bronislaw Komorowski, was reportedly ahead in the polls. As a political force, the Kaczynski regime had been waning by the time the President's plane clipped trees before slamming into the ground just short of Smolensk field.

Also, as a malicious wag put it, why would anyone bother sabotaging a Tupolev 154M, especially a 20-year-old specimen, owned and operated by the Polish Air Force? Such an aircraft is its own sabotage. This, of course, is unfair, especially in the absence of any evidence that mechanical or maintenance factors had contributed the crash, but it's probably inevitable when talking about a model that has suffered 57 hull-loss accidents with a total of 2,725 fatalities since its first flight in 1968. Comparing Tupolev 154's numbers with the Airbus A300 in about the same span of time (17 hull-loss, 1,126 fatalities) may not justify unfair wisecracks but it does explain why they're being made.

At this point, all we know is that the three-engined aircraft departed Warszawa-Okecie (Warsaw) airport with 88 passengers and a crew of eight, destined for Smolensk Air Base (XUBS) in Russia, but was in fact making an approach to Smolensk Airport (LNX) when it contacted trees about a kilometre short of the runway and broke up. The matching temperature and dew point were 1 degree Celsius and the wind from 140 degrees at six knots, making for smooth air but low ceiling and visibility. Several reports talk about heavy fog, and one suggests the plane was on its fourth landing attempt when it crashed.

The Russian Interfax agency says the Smolensk air traffic controllers advised -- they use the word "commanded" -- the crew not to make further landing attempts but fly back to Minsk in neighbouring Belorussia, or fly on to Moscow. The Russian Air Force's Alexandr Alyoshin sounds quite miffed that the Polish pilots didn't obey.

Whether the pilots didn't "obey" because they didn't have enough fuel for Minsk or Moscow--unlikely -- or because they were concerned their commander-in-chief on board might bite their heads off -- more likely -- or because they thought the Russians were wussies -- not impossible-- is anybody's guess.

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has appointed himself to personally investigate the cause of the disaster. This must reassure the people of Poland no end.