LOT Polish Airlines Flight 232
Ilyushin Il-14P · Controlled flight into terrain
From Warsaw Chopin Airport (WAW) to Vnukovo International Airport (VKO)
Event
- Event typeAccident: someone killed or seriously injured, or the aircraft substantially damaged (NTSB definition). Incident: an occurrence that affected or could have affected safety, short of that. Glossary
- Accident
- Event fatalities
- 9 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- Unknown
- Occupants
- Unknown
- Survivors
- 4
- InjuriesFatal: death within 30 days. Serious: over 48 hours in hospital within a week, most broken bones, severe bleeding, nerve or organ damage, or serious burns. Minor: anything less. Glossary
- 3
- OperationWhat kind of flying it was, grouped by the rules it flew under: airline (US Part 121), air taxi and commuter (Part 135), general aviation (Part 91 and similar), military or government. Glossary
- Airline
Ilyushin Il-14P
- Aircraft type
- Ilyushin IL-14
- Category
- Airplane · from aircraft type
- RegistrationThe aircraft's tail number, such as N12345 or G-ABCD. Registrations are reissued, so the same one years apart can be a different aircraft. Glossary
- SP-LNF
- Operator
- LOT Polish Airlines
- Onboard fatalities
- 9
- Route
- From Warsaw Chopin Airport (WAW)To Vnukovo International Airport (VKO)
Cause areas
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
- Personnel issues › Task performance
- Environmental issues › Conditions/weather/phenomena
From the investigation findings the Wikipedia article reports, sorted into the NTSB's cause areas with AI assistance.
Not plotted · Not plotted: the Wikipedia article gives no coordinates, and its site names no town or airport that matches exactly.
From the Wikipedia article
LOT Polish Airlines Flight 232 was a regularly scheduled flight from Warsaw-Okęcie Airport to Moscow Vnukovo Airport. On 14 June 1957, the Ilyushin Il-14 operating the route crashed near Vnukovo in poor weather. The cause of the crash was determined to be pilot error.
The Minister of Foreign Affairs of Mongolia, along with eight others, were killed in the accident.
Accident
The Il-14 left Warsaw-Okęcie Airport for Moscow Vnukovo Airport on 14 June 1957. On board the aircraft were eight passengers, five crewmembers, and 819 kg of mail and cargo. The passengers included five American, Chinese, and Albanian citizens. The flight was routine, and no unusual issues were reported until radio contact was lost after leaving Vilna, Lithuania at 6 p.m.
A visibility of 4 km, wind speed 18 km/h, heading 300°, cloudy weather, about six to eight cloud covers, and a cloud cover altitude of 600 m was forecast.
Communication between the pilots and Vnukovo ATC was established, and ATC instructed them to descend due to the stormy weather in the area. By the time the Il-14 was over Klimentievo, the aircraft was at an altitude of 400 m. The flight crew then contacted ATC, reporting they had seen the ground. ATC told them to descend to 300 m and continue to Vnukovo. At 11:07 p.m. local time, the pilots were cleared for an instrument approach under the procedure prescribed to Vnukovo.
Despite acknowledging the procedure, the pilot failed to comply, leading to him descending to a very low altitude. At 11:10 p.m., the aircraft struck the ground, destroying it while also killing five passengers and four crewmembers. Among the deaths were multiple American passengers who were travelling throughout Europe and the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Mongolia. The flight attendant, Ewa Fedorowska, and three passengers survived the accident, but the three passengers were severely injured. Three American journalists who saw the crashed aeroplane did rescue work, including getting people out of the wrecked Il-14 and carrying them to an ambulance.
The weather in the area at the time was described as "very low ceiling, heavy turbulence, distant lightning, and driving rain". Weather forecasts at both airports predicted the weather better than reality.
Investigation and cause
Cause
On 15 June, the day after the crash. Experts of the Polish airline went to the crash site for investigation. Polish and Soviet experts investigated the accident. The investigation ended on 20 June 1957, six days after the accident.
Investigation showed that the aircraft was in an appropriate technical condition to fly, and the plane and engines were functioning adequately when the accident happened. The wreckage of the Il-14 proved that the aircraft hit the ground at high speed, and the engines' power exceeded the usual operating power.
Furthermore, the crewmembers had enough experience and knowledge of the Il-14 required to operate the aircraft. Additionally, instructions and charts were available on the aeroplane.
The probable cause listed in the general description of the accident reads as follows:
The aircraft hit the ground while flying at an excessively low altitude following the crew's application of an approach procedure other than that prescribed by Vnukovo Aerodrome. The bad weather conditions which set in during the night and were not forecast in the messages had their influence on the disastrous end of the flight.
Text from the Wikipedia article “LOT Polish Airlines Flight 232” (revision 1370845649, retrieved 2026-09-18) by its authors, under CC BY-SA 4.0. Extracted as plain text: references, tables, images and some sections are left out. Read the article
Sources
Wikipedia article: LOT Polish Airlines Flight 232
- Revision
- 1370845649 · 2026-08-23 · retrieved 2026-09-18
- Wikidata
- Q11737219
- Licence
- Text CC BY-SA 4.0, by the article's authors; Wikidata CC0; town positions GeoNames (CC BY 4.0)
Where each value comes from
- Record
- Wikipedia article "LOT Polish Airlines Flight 232" (page 75312875, revision 1370845649)
- Date
- Wikipedia infobox: date
- Place and country
- Wikipedia infobox: site
- Map position
- none
- Aircraft, operator and route
- Wikipedia infobox: aircraft type, registration, operator, origin and destination; route airports from the linked airport articles' Wikidata codes (OurAirports)
- Operation
- flight number in the article title
- Fatalities
- Wikipedia infobox: aircraft fatalities
- Ground fatalities
- not stated in the Wikipedia infobox
- Summary
- Wikipedia infobox: summary
Source notes (1)
- Wikipedia · Facts from the Wikipedia article's infobox and coordinates, not checked against an investigation report. Independent review pending.