WARSAW - Polish Defence Minister Bogdan Klich has resigned after a government report catalogued serious errors by the crew of the military plane that crashed in Russia last year while carrying Poland's president, Prime Minister Donald Tusk said on Friday.

A Russian serviceman stands guard near part of the wreckage of a Polish government TU-154 Tupolev aircraft that crashed near Smolensk airport in this April 11, 2010 file photo. Faulty equipment and poor communication by Russian ground staff contributed to a plane crash last year that killed Poland's President Lech Kaczynski and 95 others, a Polish government commission investigating the disaster said on July 29, 2011. Its long-awaited report, drawn up by a panel of experts over 15 months, also said many of the Polish air crew lacked appropriate training for the flight and some equipment on board their TU-154 Tupolev was not properly prepared.[Photo/Agencies]

"He offered his resignation yesterday and I accepted it today," Tusk told a news conference after the publication of the long-awaited report.

The crash at Smolensk airport in western Russia on April 10, 2010, killed President Lech Kaczynski, his wife and many top Polish officials and military commanders.

Tusk named Tomasz Siemoniak, a deputy interior minister, as the new head of the defence ministry. Klich's resignation comes less than three months before a parliamentary election that Tusk's centrist Civic Platform (PO) is tipped to win.