BBC News with Jonathan Izard.
Thousands of people, many visibly shocked have gathered outside of the presidential palace in the Polish capital Warsaw after President Lech Kaczynski and dozens of top officials were killed in a plane crash in western Russia. The Prime Minister Donald Tusk called the crash the most tragic event in Poland's recent history. The plane came down in a forest as it tried to land in fog in Smolensk airport. There were no survivors. Adam Easton reports from Warsaw.
Thousands of people gathered outside the presidential palace in Warsaw in a spontaneous show of mourning. Families, young and old, brought flowers. Others lit candles. The pavement in front of the building is carpeted with flickering flames. The scale of the disaster is unprecedented, not just the president, but most of the commanders of the armed forces. Many leaders from the country's main opposition party and senior state and church officials died in the crash.
Russian officials say the aircraft flight recorders have already been recovered. Rupert Wingfield-Hayes sent this report from the scene of the crash just outside Smolensk.
The debris of president Kaczynski's plane is spread through hundreds of meters of woodland on the edge of Smolensk aerodrome. At one end, a large tree has been chopped in two by the impact and nearby lies a large section of the aircraft's wing. Further on, the tops of more trees have been smashed and then the main wreckage of the aircraft, torn into pieces, nearly 200 meters from the end of the runway. As night fell, the search of bodies continued. Among the dead are not just the Polish president and his wife, but a host of senior Polish figures, including the head of the central bank, senior military officers, members of parliament, and at least three Polish bishops.