 Kurtyka was on the Tupolev Tu-154 flight of the 36th Special Aviation Regiment carrying the President of Poland Lech Kaczyński which crashed near Smolensk-North airport near Katyn, Russia, on 10 April 2010, killing all aboard.Days before he died he called for "the results of the Russian investigation into Katyn massacre to be declassified and for the Russian archives to be opened".The post which was left open by his death was considered particularly problematic due to the difficulty there would be in replacing him.