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 the Smolensk region, where the crash took place about 11am local time (7am in Britain), said no one survived.

''The Polish presidential plane did not make it to the runway while landing. Tentative findings indicate that it hit the treetops and fell apart,'' Sergei Anufriev said on state news channel Rossiya-24. ''Nobody has survived the disaster.''

The Polish foreign ministry confirmed that Mr Kaczynski and his wife were aboard the plane.

Several other government figures, including the army chief of staff General Franciszek Gagor, central bank governor Slawomir Skrzypek and deputy Foreign Minister Andrzej Kremer, were also thought to have been on board.

They were in Russia to mark the 70th anniversary of the Katyn massacre, when the Soviets killed thousands of Poles.

The head of Russia's top investigative body, Sergei Markin, said there were a total of 132 people on the plane, a Tu-154.

Polish prime minister Donald Tusk was reportedly in tears when he was told of the tragedy.