MOSCOW. May 19 (Interfax) - The final decision as to whether the Polish presidential plane could land was due to be made by the captain, said Edmund Klich, the Polish envoy to the Russian crash investigation.
"It is always a ship commander who must assess the risk of landing in minimum conditions, so it was totally up to the pilot [whether or not to land]," Klich said at a press conference on the investigation's findings on Wednesday.
"The crew was aware of the importance of the president's attendance of the Katyn ceremony, and had they chosen to land elsewhere, he would have been late for the event," he said.
"But given all the circumstances, this is incommensurate to what has happened," Klikh said.
The crew's voices will be investigated to find out what mental state they were in, he said. "We will assess the level of stress among the crew and the time of landing," Klich said.