LOT Polish Airlines Flight 007

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.

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 at a 20-degree down angle, 950 m from the runway threshold and 100 m 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 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.

Sequence of events

Finally, when the control pushers were found to be cut in half, and it was proven that the cut was not caused by the crash, and some traces of the turbine disc's metal alloy were found on the surface of the cut, the sequence of events became clear. The disaster started when LOT 007 was instructed to climb to a higher flight level, for its second approach to the runway. When the necessary thrust was applied to all four engines, the low-pressure turbine of engine 2 disintegrated after nine seconds. One piece of the turbine disc was ejected upwards, not causing any significant damage. The second piece shot into engine 1, damaging it seriously. The third piece of the disc shot into the hull, severed the rudder and elevator control rods and destroyed engine 3, causing loss of control over the plane. The third piece also severed power cables for both the flight data recorder and the cockpit voice recorder, causing the last moments of LOT 007 not to be recorded.

The cut control rods also explained the sudden dive. When they were cut, the tail section's horizontal stabilizer, under its own weight, dropped down, causing the nose also to go down. This could be counteracted by the vertical trim; in Il-62s, the switch setting the vertical trim to manual operation was secured by a thin, sharp wire. On Captain Lipowczan's right hand, small wounds were found, and they were confirmed to be made while Lipowczan was still alive. Supposedly, he ripped off the security wire and tried to control the vertical trim, but it was too late.