The Il-62M aircraft, named Tadeusz Kościuszko, suffered catastrophic engine failure less than half an hour into the flight.
It remains the deadliest disaster in the history of Polish civil aviation.
A memorial site honouring the victims of the 1987 crash in Warsaw's Kabaty Forest. Photo: Grzegorz Petka, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
The Soviet-built jet, one of seven of its type operated by Poland’s national airline LOT, took off at 10:17 a.m. Warsaw time. Twenty-three minutes later, a critical mechanical failure forced the crew to turn back.
Despite efforts to return to the airport for an emergency landing, the aircraft became uncontrollable and crashed at 11:12 a.m.
'Goodnight, goodbye. Farewell, we’re dying'
All 172 passengers and 11 crew members were killed. The flight was under the command of Captain Zygmunt Pawlaczyk, who, along with co-pilot Major Leopold Karcher, was later praised for remaining calm and professional in the final moments.
The cockpit voice recorder captured the captain’s last words to air traffic control: “Goodnight, goodbye. Farewell, we’re dying.”
A government commission was appointed the same day to investigate the cause. Although the inquiry was shaped by the political constraints of the communist era, it concluded that the disaster was caused by a fractured turbine shaft.
The failure, resulting from material fatigue, triggered the destruction of one engine and a fire in another.
This was not the first time a Polish Il-62 had failed.
In March 1980, another LOT jet of the same model – Mikołaj Kopernik – had crashed while approaching Warsaw, killing 87 people, including Polish star singer Anna Jantar.
Although Polish investigators linked both crashes to hidden defects in Soviet manufacturing, their findings were initially dismissed by the aircraft’s designers.
Polish investigative commissions determined that the Il-62’s engine failure in 1980 was caused by metal fatigue and faulty alloy construction of the turbine shaft.
Emergency workers sift through the wreckage of the Il-62M plane after the crash on May 9, 1987, Photo: PAP/Janusz Mazur
However, at the time, the Soviet authorities and engineers refused to accept blame, dismissing the findings and initially attributing the crash to other factors, even suggesting pilot error.
The Polish report on the 1980 disaster was forwarded to Moscow but was “not recognized” by the Soviets, who placed full blame on the Polish side.
It was only after the second, nearly identical crash in 1987, which presented undeniable evidence of the same underlying flaw, that Soviet engineers and officials reluctantly acknowledged the Polish findings and accepted responsibility for the technical failures.
According to accounts of the 1987 investigation, the Polish commission stood firm despite pressure and threats from Soviet officials, and Moscow finally conceded that the Il-62’s design and manufacturing faults were to blame.
Debris from the crashed airliner, including one of its wheels. Photo: PAP/CAFF
This tacit admission was a rare moment of accountability behind the Iron Curtain.
Following the fall of communism, LOT quickly retired the Soviet-made aircraft and transitioned to a fleet of American-built Boeings.
Despite the Soviet Union’s grudging acknowledgment of the design faults, there is no evidence of any formal compensation, financial reparations, or official apology from the USSR, or later Russia, to Poland for these disasters.
At the time, such an admission of liability would have been highly unusual since Soviet practice during the Cold War was to keep air crash details secret and avoid public blame.
Including the two ill-fated LOT flights, public records indicate a total of 12 crashes and fatal accidents of the Ilyushin-62, causing over 1,100 fatalities.
(rt/gs)
Source: IAR, PAP, polskieradio24.pl