Site Białobrzegi, Poland Crew 6 Survivors 28 Number of deaths 1 Operator LOT Polish Airlines Passenger count 23 | Passengers 23 Fatalities 1 Date 2 November 1988 Destination Rzeszów–Jasionka Airport Survivor 28 | |
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Summary Icing causing engine failure Similar Uganda Airlines Flight 775, AVAir Flight 3378, Nürnberger Flugdienst Flight 108, China Southwest Airlines Fl, Austral Líneas Aéreas Fl | ||
LOT Polish Airlines Flight 703 was a plane that crash-landed about 1 kilometre (0.62 mi) north of Rogóżno railway station, on 2 November 1988. In the accident one person was killed and several were seriously injured.
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Flight
The plane, an Antonov An-24W, registered SP-LTD, named "Dunajec", took off from Okęcie airport, Warsaw for regional flight 703 to Rzeszów-Jasionka Airport. It had 25 passengers on board (including the famous radio presenter Tomasz Beksiński) and four crew members. The captain was Kazimierz Rożek (with 30 years of experience) and the co-pilot was Waldemar Wolski. The emergency started about two minutes before the planned landing, at 10:25, when the plane was flying east to runway 27. According to officials, pilots turned on the anti-icing installation too late and, during approach, both engines immediately shut down because of icing of the engine intakes. Just after that, Rożek and Wolski, knowing that they would not reach the airport, started an emergency descent, which ended in a glade.
Crash-landing and evacuation
The aircraft landed on a glade at high speed. It became airborne above a drainage ditch and crashed further on. In the moment of crash-landing, one person – a 69-year-old woman from Rzeszów – was killed. Within several seconds after the crash, two stewardess and two militia officers evacuated all passengers from the aircraft, which quickly became ablaze.
Aftermath
The crash-landing has been the last fatal air crash in Polish commercial aviation so far. It was one of the main reasons for which LOT Polish Airlines removed all An-24 served planes (this particular aircraft was 22 years old) and replaced them with ATR 42 and ATR 72.