Europe and Russia united with Poland in grief on Monday over the plane disaster that killed the country's president and 95 others over the weekend. Russian investigators said there were no technical problems with the Soviet-made plane suggesting pilot error may have been to blame.
As officials met to plan the funerals which a report said would be held on Saturday Russia Ukraine and the European Union paid their respects to President Lech Kaczynski and the 95 others who died in Saturday's tragedy in western Russia.
The Tu-154 went down while trying to land Saturday in dense fog near Smolensk airport in western Russia. All 96 passengers and crew aboard were killed including Poland's President Lech Kaczynski and dozens of political military and religious leaders. They had been traveling in the government-owned plane to attend a memorial at nearby Katyn forest honoring thousands of Polish military officers who were executed 70 years ago.
Russian investigators who have almost finished reading the flight recorders said Monday the pilots had been warned of bad weather in Smolensk and was advised by traffic controllers to land elsewhere - which would have delayed the Katyn observances.
"The readings confirm that there were no problems with the plane and that the pilot was informed about the difficult weather conditions but nevertheless decided to land" Deputy Prosecutor General Alexander Bastrykin said during a briefing with Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin in Smolensk.
Bastrykin said the readings would be double checked according to footage of the meeting broadcast Monday on Poland's TVN24.
Meanwhile Bulgaria on Monday announced it was grounding its Russian-built presidential Tupolev-154 after the Polish president's jet of the same model crashed in Russia. "Flights by the presidential plane have been suspended. Currently flights by all planes of this type are suspended until the technical cause of the accident is clear" transport ministry official Atanas Kostov told state radio.
Wreckage to stay
The wreckage meanwhile will remain on site through midweek to help speed the investigation Russian Deputy Transport Minister Igor Levitin said.
Russia Ukraine and the EU all declared a day of mourning Monday as Poles struggled to come to terms with the national tragedy that eliminated so many of their government and military leaders. Flags flew at half-mast in Russia and entertainment programs were cancelled with all advertising banned on television and radio.
Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski said Russia's President Dmitry Medvedev was among the world leaders expected to attend the president's funeral.
Tens of thousands watched as Kaczynski's body returned Sunday to Warsaw was carried in a coffin by a hearse to the presidential palace.
An annual Holocaust memorial event at Auschwitz-Birkenau on Monday was honoring Kaczynski and the other victims. Organizers of the March of the Living - with some 10000 Jewish youth marching over 1.6 kilometers between the two parts of the former Nazi death camp - said those marching would also remember Poland's elite killed in Saturday's crash.
Kaczynski's populist nationalism often made him a divisive figure at home and elsewhere in the European Union which Poland joined in 2004. Flags of the 28-nation bloc were flying at half-mast at its headquarters in Brussels. All EU meetings were preceded by two minutes of silence.
24 bodies identified
Forensics experts from Poland and Russia were working to ID other bodies using DNA testing in many cases. So far some 24 bodies have been identified including first lady Maria Kaczynski and civil rights commissioner Janusz Kochanowski.
Grieving relatives have been flown to Russia to try to speed up the process of identifying the corpses many of them disfigured beyond recognition.
"We think that this procedure will last two to three days" said Russian Health Minister Tatyana Golikova standing alongside her Polish counterpart Ewa Kopacz.
Analysts meanwhile said the robust development of the country's institutions since the collapse of the Soviet regime in 1989 means that it is likely to ride out the storm without serious upheaval.
"On the face of it it's a dramatic traumatic and fluid situation which is changing from hour to hour and day to day but it is absolutely certain that Poland's institutional stability is assured by fixed constitutional procedures" Warsaw-based political analyst Edmund Wnuk-Lipinski told AFP.
Those procedures have already swung into action with parliamentary speaker Bronislaw Komorowski assuming the duties of acting head of state and having to set the date of a snap presidential election in the next two weeks.
Poles will then have to head to the ballot box before the end of June.
A regularly scheduled presidential ballot was due in any case by this autumn in which Komorowski a liberal was widely expected to run against the conservative Kaczynski elected in 2005 who had been expected to seek a second term.
Market reaction Monday the first day of trading since the disaster was calm with the Warsaw Stock Exchange and the value of the zloty currency virtually unchanged.