Air crash in Topolów

The air crash in Topolów – a crash which occurred on 5 July 2014 in the village of Topolów in the Silesian Voivodeship. As a result of the crash of a Piper PA-31 Navajo aircraft transporting parachutists, 11 people were killed and 1 person was injured.

Course of the flight

The aircraft took off at around 16 o'clock from the airfield in Rudniki. The machine belonged to the Omega parachute school. In total there were 12 people on board: the pilot, 7 parachute jumpers, 2 tandem pilots and 2 tandem passengers. Before the flight the fuel tanks had been topped up with 50 litres of petrol.

The Piper PA-31P Pressurized Navajo aircraft with registration marks N11WB took off at around 16:00 for this aircraft's eighth flight of the day. The take-off initially proceeded normally. After reaching a height of about 100 metres AGL, owing to a loss of power of the powerplant and a lack of climb, the pilot decided to make an emergency landing in an off-field location at a distance of about 4.2 kilometres in a straight line from the runway threshold. In its final phase the stalled machine entered a right spin.

At 16:11 the aircraft, after reaching a flight height of about 100 metres, during the emergency landing, entered a right autorotational rotation (spin). With its left wingtip it struck the bough of an apple tree, and then fell to the ground “on its belly”. The aircraft lost its propellers; the fuselage broke away from the wings and turned over onto its right side, as a result of which the entry door ended up on top. Significant fuel leakage from the damaged tanks onto the hot engine components caused a fire, which engulfed the left and right wings in the area of the fuel tanks, the left engine, partly the right engine, and the fuselage except for the rear section. The aircraft crashed shortly after take-off, 3 kilometres from the airfield in Rudniki. The machine crashed in an orchard on Częstochowska Street in the village of Topolów. One of the passengers survived the crash and was pulled out of the wreckage by nearby residents. The man was transported by helicopter to hospital in Częstochowa.

Rescue operation at the crash site

The aircraft crashed in an uninhabited area. The rescue operation was initially conducted by witnesses, residents of the locality of Topolów, including a former firefighter. Three seriously injured people were pulled from the burning aircraft. The fire service received information about the event at 16:18. After securing the area, the firefighters gave pre-medical first aid to the injured, began extinguishing the fire of the wreckage and prepared a landing site for a helicopter of the Air Ambulance Service. A doctor from the ambulance team who arrived at the scene pronounced two of the three extracted people dead. The third person was transported by helicopter to hospital in Częstochowa. After the fire was extinguished, the charred bodies of nine people were recovered from the wreckage.

18 PSP crews, 2 OSP units from the KSRG and 7 units from outside the KSRG took part in the operation, as well as over a hundred police officers from the prevention units from Częstochowa and Katowice.

The rescue operations were concluded on 6 July at 08.36.

Causes of the crash based on the PKBWL report

The causes of the crash were investigated by the prosecutor's office and the State Commission on Aircraft Accidents Investigation. The preliminary findings of the PKBWL two days after the accident indicated that at the moment the aircraft struck the ground the left engine was not running, and the machine collided with the ground at a pitch close to an angle of 90° in a left spin, with a bank of about 70°. At the moment of impact with the ground the aircraft had its undercarriage retracted. The aircraft had been fuelled with fuel intended for cars.

Findings of the commission investigating the accident:

The direct cause of the crash was the occurrence of thrust asymmetry of the powerplant as a whole, as a result of failure of the right engine, and then a stall in the final phase of the emergency landing.

The pin coupling connecting the crankshaft to the propeller reduction gear drive shaft of the right engine was destroyed, which caused the right engine of the aircraft to cease operating and interrupted the operation of the pitch governor of its blades, causing them to be set to the feathered position, the result of which was a thrust asymmetry leading to the aircraft stalling and loss of controllability.

This damage could have been caused by the propeller striking an obstacle, in circumstances and at a time that could not be established, or by a long-term fatigue process caused by uneven running of the engine (one of the cylinders had been replaced in this engine).

During the investigation the PKBWL established that the aircraft was being operated without a valid Certificate of Airworthiness.