A Russian airliner that crashed shortly after take-off killing 31 on board had not been properly de-iced, the country's civil aviation head said tonight.

A PLANE carrying a Russian ice hockey team to a season-opening match crashed after takeoff from a provincial airport, with 43 people feared dead.

A passenger jet crashed in heavy fog and burst into flames on a main road in north-western Russia, just short of a runway whose high-intensity lights had failed, killing 44 people. Eight people survived.

Investigators from the Irish Air Accident Unit will today be trying to understand why the pilot of the Manx2 Fairchild Metroliner tried to land after aborting two earlier attempts and circling for 20 minutes in a holding pattern hoping for conditions to improve.

JAROSLAW KACZYNSKI has conceded defeat in the Polish presidential elections.

Four Russian soldiers have been charged with stealing bank cards from the wreckage of the plane crash that killed Polish President Lech Kaczynski and 95 others.

NON-CREW members were in the cockpit of the plane of Polish president Lech Kaczynski before its fatal crash in Russia, officials said yesterday, raising fresh questions about the tragedy’s cause.

As Polish President Lech Kaczynski’s plane streaked toward disaster, at least two passengers visited the cockpit, others may have chatted on mobile phones that can obstruct navigation instruments and an under-trained crew faced heavy fog over challenging terrain.

LAST autumn the people of Ireland were frightened and cajoled into voting for the Lisbon Treaty and, as a result of its ratification, the citizens of the EU were honoured by the appointment of a president and a high representative.

LAST autumn the people of Ireland were frightened and cajoled into voting for the Lisbon Treaty and, as a result of its ratification, the citizens of the EU were honoured by the appointment of a president and a high representative.

INVESTIGATORS blamed pilot error yesterday for a crash that killed Poland’s president, as harrowing details emerged of how the crew knew they were doomed after hitting trees while trying to land in Russia.

Poland will wait until after Sunday’s state funeral for President Lech Kaczynski to decide when to hold an early election to replace him.

Thousands of mourners threw flowers on a slow-moving hearse and joined an enormous viewing line at Warsaw’s Presidential Palace to pay their respects to Lech Kaczynski and his wife as their bodies lay in state.

The body of Poland's first lady was flown home from Russia to an emotional welcome today.

Bodies remain trapped in the wreckage of a Polish plane that crashed in Russia on Saturday, killing 96 people including President Lech Kaczynski.

The death of Poland’s president and many elite figures in Saturday’s plane crash in Russia rekindled memories of the wartime Katyn massacre.

THE body of President Lech Kaczynski was returned to Poland yesterday where it was greeted by grieving dignitaries and thousands of Poles lining the route from Warsaw’s airport to the presidential palace.

President Mary McAleese joined the country’s Polish community today to mourn the loss of their head of state and scores of other passengers in a devastating plane crash.

Thousands of people stood silent in the streets of Poland’s cities today in a silent memorial to President Lech Kaczynski and the other 95 people killed in a devastating plane crash.

Poles wept before their televisions, lowered flags to half-mast and taped black ribbons in their windows after hearing that President Lech Kaczynski and the upper echelons of the establishment lay dead in woods a short drive from the site of the Katyn forest massacre, where 22,000 Polish officers were killed by Soviet secret police in one of Poland’s greatest national traumas.

A week of national mourning has been declared in Poland after the country's President died in a plane crash.

Polish President Lech Kaczynski and his wife died today along with 130 others when their plane crashed while coming in for a landing in western Russia, officials said.

The governor of a Russian region where a plane carrying Poland’s President has crashed said there are no survivors.

A reactor at a western Russian nuclear plant has been automatically shut down because of faults in the power control loop.