On April 10, President of Poland Lech Kaczynski was killed, along with many important Polish leaders, when the plane he was in crashed in Smolensk, Russia.According to Russian officials, 97 people were killed in the crash, including First Lady Maria Kaczynska, Chief of the General Staff of the Polish Armed Forces Franciszek Gagor, and eight crew members.

The group of Polish officials was flying for the 70th anniversary of the Katyn massacre of thousands of Poles by Soviet forces during WWII. The group was traveling in a Tupolev 154, a Soviet-designed plane that was more than 20 years old. The pilots were Russian.

“For the life of me I can’t understand why so many prominent Polish people were flying on a commercial airline maintained by ex-Soviet military pensioners,” said Ken Gilmore, associate professor of political science. “It’d be like asking Obama and congress to eat Mexican from a food cart in Tijuana.”

Many people speculate that the pilots are at fault for the plane’s crash.

“Flight controllers … suggested that the plane be forwarded to Minsk but as far as we know the crew took an independent decision to land the plane in Smolensk,” Andrei Yevseyenkov, Smolensk regional government spokesman, told Russian television, according to BBC.com.

Russian and Polish officials are still gathering information about the crash. For now, a week of remembrance has been declared in Poland, and at 12 p.m. on April 18, two minutes of silence were held throughout the country, according to FoxNews.com.

Poland now has the task of grieving and moving forward as a nation in the coming weeks.

“The Polish state must function and will function,” said Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, who was reportedly in tears when news of the crash reached his ears, according to BBC.com.

Poland became a democracy within the last 25 years and this is the first death of a Polish president while in a democracy. The speaker of the lower house of parliament, Bronislaw Komorowski, is now the acting president.

“I can say, at this point, that I’ve been impressed by the orderliness of the succession process in Poland thus far,” said Gilmore. “They’ve been very ‘constitutional’ in picking various successors, including the interim president, who seems ready to hold elections.”

As Poland continues to move forward after the deaths of so many government officials, the upcoming elections could provide a shift in Polish politics.

“(Kaczynski) had advocated a right-wing Catholic agenda, opposed rapid free-market reforms and favoured retaining social welfare programmes,” according to BBC.com.

Kaczynski was a polarizing figure in Poland, but those who agreed and disagreed with his policies mourned together, and will continue to mourn together. Although tragic and painful, perhaps this accident will bring Poland together and make it stronger.