Warsaw. The 36th anniversary of the plane crash in Las Kabacki has passed

As announced by the capital city hall, after the break, the anniversary celebrations are back, during which the victims of the disaster are remembered. “We cordially invite people who want to honor the victims of the catastrophe to participate in the holy mass. The first one will take place at the crash site at 11 am, the second at the St. John’s Cathedral in the Old Town at 7 pm” – the capital city hall announced on the website.

In the place where the catastrophe took place, there is a cross and a plaque with the names of all the victims. On Tuesday, representatives of the Ursynów authorities and the Management Board of PLL LOT will lay wreaths here.

The fatal flight took off at 10.18 am. Soviet IL-62M “Tadeusz Kościuszko” belonging to LOT Polish Airlines took off from Okęcie to New York. There were 11 crew and 172 passengers on board. The first pilot was Captain Zygmunt Pawlaczyk – as a civilian pilot in LOT since 1955.

At. At 10.40, one of the four engines failed. A fire broke out on board the plane, which was then over Grudziądz. To avoid landing in the city, which could result in a significant number of casualties, the pilots decided to turn back. An emergency landing at the Modlin airport was considered, and finally Okęcie was chosen, because the Warsaw airport was able to provide the assistance of rescue services the fastest.

At. On 11.12, despite the crew’s emergency landing attempts, the plane crashed in the Kabacki Forest. “Goodnight!!! Goodbye!!! Hello!!! We are dying!!!” – is a record of the last words recorded by the black box from the cockpit. The transcript of the conversations recorded by the black box has been published.

The explosion drew the inhabitants of the surrounding houses to the vicinity of the disaster, and just a few minutes after the tragedy, the place of the disaster was surrounded by the military and ZOMO officers. According to the accounts of witnesses collected in the book by Jarosław Reszke “Hi, we are dying! The greatest disasters in post-war Poland” published in 2001, the view of the place of the tragedy was macabre.

Most of the remains were transported to the Department of Forensic Medicine in Warsaw. None of the bodies have been found whole. A special tent was set up at the cemetery in Wólka Węglowa so that the families of the victims could identify the dead there.

As it was determined, the direct cause of the disaster was “failure of the bearing of the intermediate support of the engine shaft”. As a result of bearing seizure and local temperature increase, the shaft cracked when the engine power was increased. Due to the lack of a mechanical connection between the turbine and the compressor, the turbine of one of the engines on the left side of the aircraft unscrewed and fell apart.

The direct cause of the disaster was a manufacturing defect caused by a manufacturing error. “It must be remembered that the specific design of the aircraft also contributed to the crash” – noted aviation expert Tomasz Hypki. He explained that in the design of the Ila-62M, the disintegration of one engine causes the other to be automatically destroyed. “Then, the elements can destroy the hull and the control system,” he added. Hypki noted that currently the engines are placed under the wings of the aircraft, because then it is less likely that in the event of a failure it will destroy other important structural elements.

On the anniversary of the tragic crash, Daniel Chaliński talked to the daughter of one of the passengers and the wife of one of the pilots>>>

According to a government commission report, “parts of the burst rotor” damaged an adjacent engine, penetrated the rear fuselage and damaged the control system.

The Soviet side could not come to terms with the report’s results for a long time, claiming that the pilots’ mistakes were the decisive factor in the crash, and that any damage to the plane’s engines occurred only as a result of the machine’s collision with the ground.

The Prosecutor’s Office in Warsaw, conducting the investigation into the “Kościuszko” disaster, discontinued it due to the fact that the crime was not confirmed. Structurally defective IŁ-62Ms were withdrawn from service only in 1991-92. One of the streets in Warsaw’s Ursynów district is named after the first pilot of the machine on this flight, Zygmunt Pawlaczyk.

Prepared on the basis of an archival telegram of the Polish Press Agency.