{"id":3149,"date":"2012-05-09T23:45:14","date_gmt":"2012-05-09T23:45:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/polish\/?p=3149"},"modified":"2012-05-09T23:45:14","modified_gmt":"2012-05-09T23:45:14","slug":"polands-worst-aviation-catastrophe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/polish\/polands-worst-aviation-catastrophe\/","title":{"rendered":"Poland&#8217;s worst aviation catastrophe"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: justify\">The worst aviation disaster (<strong>najgorsza katastrofa lotnicza<\/strong>) in Polish history took place 25 years ago today, when 183 people died after a flight from Warsaw to New York crashed in Kabaty forest to the south of Warsaw.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\">LOT Polish Airlines 5055 flight from Warsaw&#8217;s Okecie airport took off at 10.18 am on 9 May 1987, but problems emerged within half an hour of being airborne.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\">With maximum thrust applied to the engines so as to climb to 6000 metres, one engine exploded and a fire took hold.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\">Captain Zygmunt Pawlaczyk resolved to turn back to Warsaw, but the fire (<strong>ogie\u0144<\/strong>) spread quicker than initially expected, causing a series of malfunctions (<strong>usterki<\/strong>).<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\">Just 5700 metres from the Warsaw Airport runway, the plane nosedived, crashing into the Kabaty Forest.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\">The captain managed to make a last announcement that was preserved in the black box.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\">\u201cGoodnight! Goodbye! Bye! We&#8217;re dying!\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\">Owing to the severity of the crash, 62 of the 183 bodies were never positively identified. The victims included 166 Polish citizens and 17 Americans.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=iBtXOgNASXg\">http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=iBtXOgNASXg<\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\">Two days of national mourning (<strong>\u017ca\u0142oba krajowa<\/strong>) were declared.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\">Polish investigators found that the Soviet Ilyushin II-62M plane, named by LOT after Polish 18th century hero <strong>Tadeusz Ko\u015bciuszko<\/strong>, had had a defective engine (<strong>uszkodzony silnik<\/strong>).<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\">Although improvements were subsequently implemented by LOT on the model, Poland was obliged to continue using Soviet planes.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\">After the revolution of 1989, Poland began purchasing Boeings, and the last Ilyushins were sold off in 1991.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Do nast<\/strong><strong>\u0119pnego razu&#8230; <\/strong>(Till next time&#8230;)<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\">\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The worst aviation disaster (najgorsza katastrofa lotnicza) in Polish history took place 25 years ago today, when 183 people died after a flight from Warsaw to New York crashed in Kabaty forest to the south of Warsaw. LOT Polish Airlines 5055 flight from Warsaw&#8217;s Okecie airport took off at 10.18 am on 9 May 1987&hellip;<\/p>\n<p class=\"post-item__readmore\"><a class=\"btn btn--md\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/polish\/polands-worst-aviation-catastrophe\/\">Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":56,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":""},"categories":[3,10166],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3149","post","type-post","status-publish","hentry","category-culture","category-current-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/polish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3149","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/polish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/polish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/polish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/56"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/polish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3149"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/polish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3149\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3151,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/polish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3149\/revisions\/3151"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/polish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3149"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/polish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3149"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/polish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3149"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}