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LOT Polish Airlines crash in Romania (1938)

22 Jul 1938 · vicinity of the village of Găinești

Lockheed Model 14 Super Electra · Aircraft collision with terrain

From Chernivtsi to Bucharest

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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
14 · all aircraft and ground
Ground fatalities
Unknown
Occupants
Unknown
Survivors
Unknown
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
Unknown
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

Lockheed Model 14 Super Electra

Aircraft type
Lockheed Model 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-BNG
Onboard fatalities
14
Route
From ChernivtsiTo Bucharest

Approximate · Coordinates from the Wikipedia article; not checked against an investigation report.

From the Wikipedia article

The LOT Polish Airlines crash in Romania (1938) – the crash of a LOT Polish Airlines Lockheed L-14H passenger aircraft, flying from Romanian Chernivtsi to Bucharest, on 22 July 1938 at 17.52 near the village of Găinești, south of the locality of Gura Humorului, in the Bukovina area of the then Kingdom of Romania.

Investigation and cause

Investigation of the causes

The investigation of the causes of the accident was undertaken by a Polish-Romanian aviation commission. The completion of its work was prevented by the outbreak of World War II and the loss of the investigation documents during it. Some accident experts pointed to atmospheric conditions (a lightning strike); the most probable is the chafing through of the elevator cable and loss of controllability – as indicated by the unusual trace of the surviving record on the on-board barograph.

It is accepted that the causes of the crash have not been fully explained.

Translated into English with AI assistance from the Polish Wikipedia article “Katastrofa samolotu PLL LOT w Rumunii (1938)” (revision 80481700, retrieved 2026-09-19) by its authors, under CC BY-SA 4.0. Extracted as plain text: references, tables, images and some sections are left out; the translation may contain errors, and long articles were cut to their first 700 words. Read the article

Sources

Polish Wikipedia article: Katastrofa samolotu PLL LOT w Rumunii (1938)
Article
Katastrofa samolotu PLL LOT w Rumunii (1938)
Translation
Into English with AI assistance; names of linked operators and aircraft types from Wikidata. It may contain errors.
Revision
80481700 · 2026-08-20 · retrieved 2026-09-19
Wikidata
Q25413045
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
pl Wikipedia article "Katastrofa samolotu PLL LOT w Rumunii (1938)" (page 3540018, revision 80481700), translated into English with AI assistance
Date
Wikipedia infobox: date
Place and country
Wikipedia infobox: site
Map position
Wikipedia article coordinates
Aircraft, operator and route
Wikipedia infobox: aircraft type, registration, operator, origin and destination; route airports from the linked airport articles' Wikidata codes (OurAirports)
Operation
operator named as an airline in the infobox
Fatalities
Wikipedia infobox: aircraft fatalities
Ground fatalities
not stated in the Wikipedia infobox
Summary
Wikipedia article lead
Source notes (1)
  • Wikipedia · Facts from the Polish Wikipedia article's infobox, translated into English with AI assistance, not checked against an investigation report. Independent review pending.