The death of Polish President Lech Kaczynski in a plane crash is likely to raise questions about the 20-year-old Tupolev-154 he was travelling in.

There had been calls for Polish leaders to upgrade their planes.

And in late 2008 Mr Kaczynski had suffered a couple of scares. Problems with the aircraft's steering mechanism delayed his departure from Mongolia, forcing him to take a charter flight to Tokyo, and a week later the plane was caught up in turbulence flying to Seoul.

However, the aircraft had recently undergone a major overhaul and Aleksey Gusev, the head of the maintenance plant that carried out the work, told Polish TV that it should not have had technical problems.

"From the moment it entered service, the plane had had 5,004 flight hours and 1,823 landings, which for aircraft of this class is not a lot," he said.

"The plane was flying quite well and there were no complaints."

The overhaul was completed in December and included repairing the plane's three engines. The next major service was due in six years.

To read full BBC story — Go Here Now.