LOT Polish Airlines Flight 007 was an Ilyushin Il-62 that crashed near Warsaw-Okecie Airport in Poland, on 14 March 1980, as the crew aborted a landing and attempted to go-around, killing all 77 passengers and 10 crew members on board. It was caused by the disintegration of a turbine disc in one of the plane's engines, leading to uncontained engine failure. The turbine shaft was later found to have manufacturing faults.
Aircraft, crew, and passengers LOT Polish Airlines initiated its transatlantic routes in 1973, for which it decided to purchase Ilyushin Il-62s. The aircraft that crashed was the first Il-62 that LOT had purchased for these routes, manufactured in 1971. The crashed plane, registered as SP-LAA, was named after astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus (Polish: Mikołaj Kopernik). All of the crew members of Flight 007 were Polish. The captain, Paweł Lipowczan, was 46 years old, with 8,770 flight hours' experience, half of them on Ilyushin Il-62s. The first officer was Tadeusz Łochocki. The remaining flight crew were flight engineer Jan Łubniewski, flight navigator Konstanty Chorzewski, and radio operator Stefan Wąsiewicz. There were five flight attendants on board. Future world heavyweight champion boxer Tony Tucker was supposed to be on Flight 007 but could not go because of a shoulder injury. All 87 people on board were killed, including 14 boxers and 8 staff members of the U.S. boxing team, and Polish pop singer Anna Jantar.
Accident On its final flight, the aircraft was piloted by Captain Lipowczan and First Officer Łochocki. Flight 007 was scheduled to depart from New York's Kennedy International Airport at about 19:00 local time on 13 March 1980, but it was delayed because of a heavy snowstorm. It finally departed at 21:18, and after nine hours of an uneventful flight, it was approaching Warsaw-Okęcie Airport at 11:13 local time. During their final approach, about one minute before the landing, the crew reported to Okęcie Air Traffic Control (ATC) that the landing gear indicator light was not operating, and that they would go around and allow the flight engineer to check if it was caused by a burnt-out fuse or light bulb, or if there was actually some problem with the gears deploying.
This was the last transmission from LOT 007. Nine seconds later, the aircraft suddenly entered a steep dive. At 11:14:35, after 26 seconds of uncontrolled descent, the aircraft clipped a tree with its right wing and impacted the ice-covered moat of a 19th-century military fortress at a speed of approximately 380 km/h (210 kn; 240 mph) at a 20-degree down angle, 950 m (3,120 ft) from the runway threshold and 100 m (330 ft) from a residential area. According to investigators analyzing the wreckage, at the last moment Captain Lipowczan, using nothing but the plane's ailerons, managed to avoid hitting a correctional facility for teenagers located at Rozwojowa Street. On impact, the aircraft disintegrated; a large part of the main hull submerged in the moat, while the tail and parts of the main landing gear landed some metres further, just before the entrance to the fort. On the scene, a diving team was later trying to recover parts of the aircraft (including some of the engines) from the moat, but it was far too murky. Ultimately, the moat had to be drained to allow the investigators to recover parts of the disintegrated plane. The body of Captain Lipowczan was found lying on the street about 60 m (200 ft) from the crash site; other bodies were scattered among the plane parts. The majority of the victims were found to be bisected due to seat belts being fastened at the time of impact.
Among the 87 fatalities were Polish singer Anna Jantar, American ethnomusicologist Alan P. Merriam, six Polish students returning home from an AIESEC conference in New York, and a contingent of the U.S. amateur boxing team (who were scheduled for a series of exhibition fights in Europe instead of the boycotted Summer Olympics). According to doctors who arrived at the scene, many of the passengers were apparently asleep when the plane hit the ground, but some of them – including many of the boxers – were supposedly aware that they were about to crash, as they gripped their seats so tightly that on impact, the muscles and tendons in their arms became severed. Some reports suggested that some of the boxers actually survived the crash and drowned in the moat, but no evidence for this was presented. A total of 22 U.S. boxers, trainers, and doctors died in the accident, including the 1979 Pan American Games light welterweight winner Lemuel Steeples. A number of Olympic team members were not on the flight due to various boxing injuries or other reasons.
Investigation
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