These were the final words that were captured
on the Cockpit Voice Recording on board LOT Polish Airlines Flight 5055. Translated from Polish into English this reads... âGoodnight, goodbye. Bye, we are dyingâ. These haunting final words came at the very
end of a struggle to save the lives of 183. The case Flight 5055 is one where a lot of
things went wrong. On May 9th, 1987, this large passenger plane
fell out of the sky following a devastating catastrophic failure within the planeâs
engines. What followed was a desperate struggle from
the pilots to save the plane from crashing. Ultimately this resulted in the deadliest
air disaster in Polandâs history. But itâs how it got to this point is what
we need to examine further. Because hidden away beneath this surface of
this planeâs skin, is certain type of failure that occurred at multiple levels, mechanical
and financial. The date was May 9th, 1987. At Warsaw in Poland a large passenger plane
was preparing for a long flight to the United States that morning. That day was a Saturday, and it was a warm
sunny clear day. The perfect day to go flying. LOT Flight 5055 was the chartered flight from
Warsaw to San Francisco via New York. A total of 172 passengers would be taking
the flight that day. LOT Polish Airlines in the 1970s had launched
their first transatlantic flights connecting Poland with the United States. At that time during the cold war and under
the Soviet sphere of influence, LOT didnât much choice in sourcing a long range airliner,
the plane they ended up with was the Ilyushin iL62. When the Il62 first took to the skies in the
early 1960s it was actually for a time the largest passenger plane around. It has four rear mounted engines giving it
a rather distinctive look. For air carriers in Eastern Europe and beyond,
the iL-62 was the answer for long range operations. Its also a plane that LOT has had some history
with. In 1980 Flight 007, one of their iL62s crashed
nearby to the airport here in Warsaw killing 87 people. Following an investigation into that accident
revealing the cause to be linked to manufacturing and design defects in the aircraftâs engines,
the airline sought to modernize the iL62 fleet by replacing them with the newer iL62M. The updated version of the plane that first
started flying in 1974 featured a number of improvements to the aircraft, including a
redesigned flight deck. Modifications to the wings were also made,
introducing a newer spoiler system and increased fuel capacity. Above all the biggest change to this plane
was different engines. The Soloviev D-30 engines would find their
way onto a number of the most popular planes ever to come out of the Soviet Union, including
the massive Ilyushin IL76 and the ever popular Tupolev 154. The engines being the source of disaster in
the 1980 incident, LOT replaced all of their older IL62s with these newer models. The story and the specific details about the
disaster of LOT Flight 007 is best saved for another day. Re-directing our attention back to Warsaw
in 1987, this particular aircraft was built in 1983 so it was a fairly new plane at the
time. Taking command of the large plane that day
was 59-year-old Captain Zygmunt Pawlaczyk. That day was supposed to be a day off for
the captain but he stepped in to cover another Captain. He was an exceptionally experienced with nearly
20,000 total flight hours to his name. He had spent over 10 years in the cockpit
of the IL62 by the time of the accident. Sat in the right seat was the much younger
44-year-old First Officer Leopold Karcher. Now these old Soviet Airliners typically required
up to five people to fly. In this case there were 6 men in the cockpit. Also on the flight deck was a Flight Engineer,
43-year-old Wojciech KĹossek 47-year-old LesĹaw Ĺykowski was sat in the navigators
position. Handling the radios was 43-year-old Leszek
Bogdan. And finally, the last member of crew was in
an observation role. 53-year-old Ryszard Chmielewski
With a total of 11 crew members on board the flightâs total occupants was brought to
183. Now with setting up the scene here when looking
into this Disaster, the conversation certainly canât miss the extraordinary stroke of luck
that was given to one passenger who was supposed to be on the flight. One Janina Szulc-Tomaszewska was a New Jersey
resident and was travelling home after visiting family in Poland. During her trip she purchased an expensive
mink coat. In Warsaw airport, she didnât know that
she needed to declare the item. Now Flight 5055 was a sold out flight, every
seat was booked but there was an additional overbooked passenger letâs just say, who
happened to be acquainted with a Customs Officer in Warsaw airport. This Customs Officer, basically decided to
do this individual a solid and free up a seat for them. Janina Szulc-Tomaszewska was singled out by
the customs officer as she didnât declare this expensive fur. She missed the flight because of it. Though she argued with airport personnel in
Warsaw, she didnât know it at the time but her failure to file the appropriate documents
and declare her item had just saved her life. At 10:07 in the morning on May 9th, 1987,
Flight 5055 pushed back from the gate in Warsaw. The airport layout in Warsaw has not changed
much since 1987. Flight 5055 was taxied down to the South side
of the airport for a northerly departure from Runway 33. Now this is a case we actually have an Air
Traffic Control Recording for. What you are about to hear are the actual
words that were exchanged between the plane and the control tower that morning. Using this recording we can gain a further
understand as to how the following events unfolded. -atc recording
After take-off, the pilots were given a heading from the departure controller. Heading 290. Additionally, the controllers cleared the
flight to climb up to 28,000 feet, flight level 280. As the plane climbed there was some conflict
of airspace between the plane and nearby military airspace. When Flight 5055 first accepted the departure
clearances on the ground, among the conditions in the clearance was to reach 18,000 feet
before reaching a certain waypoint as the plane flew out Northwest of Warsaw. It turned out in this case that they were
below this threshold which may have posed a risk of a midair collision as training exercises
were being conducted that day and military and civilian radio communications were segregated. This exchange was recorded... -atc recording â airspace conflict
As a result of this exchange, the pilots sought to increase their climb rate and thus increased
the throttles to maximum power. The throttle setting would stay at this higher
setting for around 9 minutes. Soon the Departure controller handed them
off to another frequency and said goodbye. -atc recording
-pause The
recording here on this controllers end is extremely muffled, I have done my best here
to raise the frequencies of this Polish controllerâs vocals. The new controller clears the flight to a
higher altitude up to 31,000 feet. -atc recording
The time was 10:40. LOT Polish Airlines Flight 5055 was passing
over the town of GrudziÄ
dz, about 110 miles Northwest of Warsaw, about 50 miles south
of Gdansk. They reported an altitude of 26 and a half
thousand feet as they continued their further climb up to 31,000. In the cabin, the flight attendants were preparing
their service for the passengers. Hanna ChÄciĹska was one of the five flight
attendants on the flight. She was positioned in the very rear of the
plane, in that space that is between the two sets of engines. Disaster would strike the plane very soon,
just as passengers began settling into the The following segment of the ATC recording
will give us a window into the moment catastrophe struck the plane, letâs play out this section
of the recording before going into detail on what exactly happened here. -atc recording
Now that was the ATC recording, we also have the cockpit voice recording transcript from
the moment the failure occurred. From the ATC recording and the CVR transcript,
what we have learnt is that, from the pilotâs perspective, two of the planeâs four engines,
the two on the left side had malfunctioned, failed, at that moment the pilots really had
no idea into the specifics. They knew however that there was an explosion,
an explosive decompression and a suspected fire. As you heard the controller suspected a collision
of some kind, the pilots werenât sure. Now this is the crux of the situation, the
key question to answer. What happened to these engines, well more
specifically the issue was actually just with one engine. What the pilots didnât know was that an
uncontained engine failure had just occurred with the number 2 engine. That is on the Il62 the inner engine on the
left side. Now an uncontained engine failure could occur
for any one of a multitude of reasons, the history of aviation history is littered with
such events. But to distinguish it from a contained engine
failure, the uncontained scenario involves parts of the engineâs internals being ejected
outside of the engine housing. This is what happened on this flight, and
it canât really be overstated just how catastrophic this failure was for reasons weâll get into
soon. But first lets unpack the details of this
specific case of an Uncontained engine failure. In this case, the low pressure engine shaft
inside engine number 2, had succumbed to excessive heat damage. This led to a total failure and disintegration
of the shaft and the engine internals as a whole. The next question is how this heat was generated
in the first place. For that we have to understand what this thing
is. This is a roller bearing. These are found in all types of engines you
can even find them in the engine of your car. They can also be found inside of airplane
engines; the number of these bearings varies on the engine model. They are used to give support and bear loads
which can minimize friction within an engine. The roller bearings on the Soloviev D30 engines
are supposed to be fitted with a total of 26 of these cylindrical individual roller
parts to make up the larger component. Now we are only interested in one of the roller
bearings. and turbines. What was later determined by investigators
when looking through the wreckage of the plane was that this bearing in addition to the others
related to engine number two were fitted with only half of the necessary rolling parts. 13 as apposed to the normal 26. LOT Polish Airlines knew about this but allowed
the engine to go into service as there was a delay on the shipment of newer bearings
and they needed the engine. It was revealed many years after the Iron
Curtain fell, that Lot was known to have employed cost cutting practices in the operation of
their planes, especially when it came to their engines. Something that people have linked to this
disaster in the years since. Furthermore, an additional modification in
the form of multiple drilled holes into the critical bearing at fault was supposed to
be a method to supply lubrication to the bearing. Instead it acted as more of a point of weakness
and fatigue. This enabled an environment where the engine
shaft was experiencing temperatures in excess of 1000 degrees Celsius. The component that should have helped support
the shaft and reduce friction had deteriorated the engine shaft to such a poor condition
that on that fateful day, it broke. This was following the 9 minute period of
maximum applied thrust demanded from the pilots to allow them to climb faster. This is how the uncontained engine failure
occurred. At the onset of the failure, the pilots immediately
experienced the human effects of decompression. Just when the pilots were settling into their
long flight, they suddenly received warnings indicating an engine fire; the number one
and two engines were down. The explosive force of the failure had sent
debris from the failed engine through into the neighboring number one engine. As a result the two left side engines were
basically destroyed in this moment. Additionally, vital hydraulic flight control
lines were severed in the process. Other debris fractured the skin of the aircraft
and teared a hole at the rear of the fuselage, depressurizing the cabin. Numerous electrical failures occurred across
the plane including the failure of the fire detection system in the lower cargo deck where
a fire began to burn. It was at that moment of failure that Flight
Attendant Hanna ChÄciĹska positioned in the space between the engines was killed,
she was the first fatality. According to Polish sources, during the crisis
that followed about four minutes before the crash a flight attendant was reported to have
went on record on the cockpit voice recording to say they couldnât find her. Hanna from that moment on was missing. Her body was never found at the eventual crash
site which meant her fate could have been one of two possibilities. One she was ejected from the plane following
the decompression. Or two, she was either stuck in the back of
the plane and burned in the fire. Or possibly was injured or killed directly
from debris from the faulting engine. Either way her remains were never recovered
or were unrecognizable at the scene of disaster... Captain Pawlaczyk with his 20,000 flight hours,
now needed to put his knowledge and experience of flying to work. He began to turn the plane around for a return
to Warsaw. After swiftly identifying the decompression,
he began to descend to a lower altitude so himself, his crew and passengers could safely
breath. During the turn to the right the captain discovered
that this situation was worse than he thought, as if this couldnât get any worse. The flight controls were rather unresponsive. The rudder and the elevators werenât working. They did have control of the ailerons and
could still steer the plane where it needed to go, and they did have some pitch control
by use of trim. But this wasnât enough to effectively manipulate
the pitch with such a heavy plane on just two engine. Flight 5055 would now continue to descend
against the pilotâs will. Additionally we should note that four minutes
after the crisis began, the indicated engine fire was extinguished. The Il62 was equipped with an automated engine
fire extinguishing system. But there were still fires in other parts
of the plane that would continue to burn and spread. The pilots had no idea of this due to the
electrical outage shutting off much of the fire detection systems. Lets continue with the recording. -atc recording
They needed to jettison fuel to prevent an overweight landing. Also, the reason why the pilots elected Warsaw
to be the return airport as opposed to the nearer Gdansk, this was likely to give them
a bit of time to actually jettison the fuel. But there was a problem, the electrical failures
across the plane had left some connection issues between the cockpit and electrically
powered Fuel dumping system. They couldnât dump the fuel right away. It took several minutes for the jettison system
to actually begin the dump and over 30 tons of fuel was released from the plane. 10:51. The pilots were struggling to keep control
of their aircraft. they continuously were losing altitude and
with minimal flight controls a radio call goes out to try and get them into a nearer
airport. Northwest of Warsaw is Modlin airport. At the time it was a military airfield, but
air travellers today will know this as the Warsaw airport served by Ryanair. -atc recording
The controller would spend one minute trying to contact Modlin for clearance. -atc recording
The situation onboard the stricken plane would only continue to deteriorate. The pilots were unaware of the fire that was
in the cargo hold. As mentioned earlier an electrical failure
had cut off the fire detection systems in the cargo bay. The fire continued to burn without interference. In the cabin passengers were absolutely aware
of how dire their situation was. Some passengers even took time to write notes
of goodbye that would later be found in the wreckage. At 10:53 Flight 5055 would enquire again about
the option of landing in Modlin. -atc recording
Eventually the flight received clearance to land at the Modlin base and requested that
controllers use their radar to guide them to the airport. However, the plane had descended beyond a
point where it could not be picked up on the radar of the higher altitude controllers. With radar contact lost, the crew were sent
radar information to try and locate the Modlin air field. They were once again put back in touch with
Warsaw approach where they made contact at 10:58. With each passing minute, the captain evidently
had doubts about the idea of landing here. Though it was a closer airport, the emergency
services were better quipped at Warsaw. At precisely 11:00 the pilots made the call
to fly directly to Warsawâs main airport. -atc recording
The controller gave them a vector south of the airport, this was in preparation for landing
on Runway 33, from the south The controller offers the pilots an approach
onto runway 11. Which would mean they could fly almost directly
into the airport from their heading approaching Warsaw from the North West regardless of the
wind conditions. This would decrease the flying time and get
them on the ground sooner. Captain Pawlaczyk did have some doubts about
this and requested wind information. Upon hearing that the straight in approach
would include a 22 kilometer per hour tailwind, he elected to fly the Runway 33 approach from
the south instead, using the same runway they used to take off. The crew were rather adamant about that with
controllers. -atc recording
11:08, Flight 5055 was roughly 15 kilometers from the airport. They were being directed south of the airport. The plan was for the plane to brought in with
a left turn to line up for the runway. It is here that we reach the endgame of the
crisis. The fire that had continued to burn throughout
the plane was now indicated to the pilots has it can spready to the right side engines. It was burning and eating its way through
the remaining flight control systems. They would communicate that they were now
having difficult with turning the plane. In the final moments of the flight, as they
tried to wrestle the plane toward the airport, theyâd drift off course. Visible from the ground many looked up into
the clear sky to observe the crippled plane in its final moments. -atc recording
In the final seconds of the flight, Flight 5055 would transmit their final message. The transmission gives us a small glimpse
in the chaos that had now descended in the cockpit. Theyâd transmit their final words as all
control was now lost. The final descent toward the ground, brought
the Ilyushin jet into the Kabaty wood just a few kilometers from the airport. -atc recording. Ending. Out of control in a nose down attitude, LOT
Polish Airlines Flight 5055 crashed into the woods. All 183 people on board the plane, were now
dead. Had the flight crew had just one to two more
minutes, they might have made it. Very quickly following the crash, first responders
had arrived only to witness the horrifying scene of plane wreckage. The crash had carved a path through the forest. Some even noticing the human remains tangled
in the trees. Some sources have speculated on the thought
process of the captain in the final seconds before the crash. In this desperate dire situation it may have
become apparent that there was no way with such little control that they could have guided
the plane to safety. Even in 1987, there were populated surrounding
the Kabaty Woods, beyond the end of the trees from where the plane was heading lays the
densely populated neighborhood of the same name. Kabaty around this time was experiencing large
population growth as people moved into newly constructed apartment blocks. It is the belief of some that Captain Pawlaczyk
using what little flight controls he had left crashed the plane into the woods on purpose
to prevent further loss to human life. The investigation that followed had to be
conducted without much help from the aircraftâs manufacturer in the Soviet Union. Ilyushin only supplied the most basic of information
and their co-operation in the investigation was limited. Polish investigators established that this
accident bore a striking resemblance to aforementioned disaster Flight 007 which occurred 7 years
previously, both disasters were the result of an Uncontained engine failure. An even earlier similar incident, the KĂśnigs
Wusterhausen Disaster of 1972 was a case of an inflight fire, albeit for different reasons,
that destroyed the flight controls leading to the deaths of 156 people. For more information consider watching our
video on that disaster. These types of uncontained engine failures
are devastating and airplane manufacturers over the years have taken great steps in preventing
these types of accidents. United Airlines Flight 232 is another case
that had many similarities to that of Lot 5055. Polish investigators forwarded their findings
to Moscow with a number of recommendations including the addition of an engine vibration
gauge on the Il62, something that was actually raised when the first crash occurred. The modernizing of the planeâs fire and
smoke detection equipment was also recommended. At that time, LOT was unable to purchase planes
from Western manufacturers such as Boeing and Airbus. Behind the iron curtain their options were
limited to Soviet planes. This changed at the end of the 1980s and the
airline eventually retired the Il62 plane in 1992. Patreon Outro
Hello everyone, thank you so much for watching. You made it to the end, of what has been to
date the longest ever episode of Disaster Breakdown, mind you that is only by a matter
of seconds as I think the Aer Lingus video is only just a little bit shorter. I do love making these longer videos and everyone
seems love them. Unfortunately I canât make them every week
that is borderline impossible for a weekly schedule and just one person, me. However I have thought of perhaps changing
the upload schedule so I can do these longer videos on the regular but only upload as and
when their completed. Itâs something Iâm thinking about, so
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two days before it goes out publicly on YouTube. So that is it from me this week, Iâm going
to shut up now. If you do want to continue hearing my voice
you can always check out a couple of the videos that should be on the screen right now. That being said, thanks for watching and Iâll
see you next week. Goodbye!
Those final words from Captain Pawlaczyk really broke my heart
"Goodnight, Goodbye. Bye, we're dying"
truly saddening and heartbreaking, R.I.P all 183 people onboard LOT 5055
Disaster Breakdown is such a good channel