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 In the transcript, the crew on several occasions ask people to be
quiet or to leave the cockpit, and conversations suggest people in
or around the cockpit were drinking beer, though there is no
indication the crew themselves consumed alcohol.
The crash, in Smolensk, western Russia, killed 96 people, including
Polish President Lech Kaczynski, his wife, the central bank
governor, top army commanders and other high-ranking officials. An
investigation is still underway.
A spokesman for the Warsaw main military prosecutor's office, which
is conducting the investigation into the crash, said he had no
immediate comment on the transcript.
The radio station, RMF FM, said the transcript was from the cockpit
voice recorder recovered from the aircraft wreckage soon after the
crash. It said Polish investigators had in February used new
techniques to decipher parts of the recording provided to them by
Russian authorities, which was of such poor quality that it had
previously been unintelligible.
According to the transcript, the crew were worried about reports of
thick fog at the airport where they were to land, and discussed
turning back, but felt pressure to keep going so the president would
not have to cancel his engagement.
The radio station said the head of diplomatic protocol in the Polish
foreign ministry told the captain: "We will try until we make it"
roughly 15 minutes before the crash.
Polish air force commander-in-chief Andrzej Blasik, traveling on the
plane as a passenger, was in the cockpit and told the pilots 41
seconds before the crash: "You'll make it easily," according to the
transcript.
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As the captain and crew tried to decide whether to land, they were
distracted by people in or around the cockpit, according to the
transcript.
The transcript cites a person in the cockpit or in its immediate
proximity asking someone: "What is it?". The other person replies:
"Beer, and you are not drinking?".
Two minutes later a stewardess asks somebody in or near the cockpit:
"Will you drink?". The person replies: "Yeees".
The crash happened as the president and his entourage were on their
way to a ceremony to commemorate the Katyn massacre, when the Soviet
Union's secret police killed thousands of Polish officers in a
forest in western Russia in 1940.
(Reporting by Marcin Goettig; Editing by Andrew Heavens)
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