An-24 catastrophe near Szczecin

An-24B with serial number 97305702 and serial 057-02 was released by the Kiev Aviation Plant in 1969 , after which it was transferred to the Polish People's Republic , where it received the tail number 012 and by December 24 entered the 36th Special Aviation Transport Regiment of the Polish Air Force forces (based at the Warsaw airport Okenche ) ^[1] .

The crew of the aircraft consisted of five people ^[2] :

• The commander of the ship - 43-year-old major Edward Edynak ( Polish Edward Jedynak )
• The co - pilot is 34-year-old captain Kazimierz Marchak ( Polish: Kazimierz Marczak )
• Navigator - 39-year-old captain Daniel Sterna ( Polish. Daniel Sterna )
• Flight engineer - 48-year-old captain Janusz Glovka ( Polish. Janusz Główka )
• Short-haired man - 44-year-old senior sergeant Tadeusz Blazejczyk ( Polish. Tadeusz Błazejczyk )

Polish delegation ^[2]

• Wieslaw Ochepka ( Polish. Wiesław Ociepka ) - Minister of the Interior
• Ministry of the Interior staff:
  • Colonel Cheslav Karski ( Polish. Czesław Karski )
  • Colonel Wieslaw Zayda ( Polish Wiesław Zajda )
  • Major Włodzimierz Strzelecki ( Polish. Włodzimierz Strzelecki )
• Government Security Bureau staff:
  • Major Mieczyslaw Szumowski ( Polish. Mieczysław Szumowski )
  • Lt. Col. Vlodzimierz Andrei Vulkiewicz ( Polish: Włodzimierz Andrzej Wulkiewicz )
  • Ensign (according to other data - Sergeant) Mikolaj Stefan Tomala ( Polish. Mikołaj Stefan Tomala )

Czechoslovak delegation ^[2]

• Michal Kudzei ( czech. Michal Kudzej ) - Head of the State Administration of the Central Committee of the Czechoslovak Communist Party
• Radko Kaska ( Czech Radko Kaska ) - Minister of the Interior
• Ministry of the Interior staff:
  • Colonel Jaroslav Klima ( czech. Jaroslav Klíma )
  • Colonel Ladislav Gužvik (c . Ladislav Hužvík )
  • Major Dr. Olga Merunova ( czech Olga Merunová )
  • Subscriber Antonin Dufek ( Czech Antonín Dufek )

On the morning of this day, a Czechoslovak government delegation arrived in Warsaw from Prague . After the ceremonial reception, the Czech representatives intended to take the train in the evening to arrive in Szczecin in the morning and visit the Szczecin Sea Port, which was actually a transit point for goods from Czechoslovakia (delivered to the port by train) to Western Europe. But then instead of the train, it was decided to go to Szczecin by plane to arrive there on the same day. For the flight, the An-24 was taken aboard the 012 government squadron, on which officers of Polish ministries also landed. In the evening, a plane with 13 passengers and 5 crew members on board flew from Warsaw ^[2] .

The flight passed without deviations and at about 10:45 pm the crew began to descend for a landing approach at Szczecin Airport . In the process of descending, the airliner flew into the clouds, but the radar equipment at the airport worked fine and the dispatcher promptly passed instructions to the crew on the preservation of the trajectory. Then, unexpectedly, at 22:52, the connection with the crew disappeared, and no messages were received from the board about the failures. More than two kilometers from the airport, flying over a hill, the An-24 caught the tops of the pines, after which, rushing through the trees, crashed into the ground 2.2 kilometers from the strip, completely collapsed and burned. All 18 people on board died ^[3] .

To investigate the causes of the incident, a Polish-Czech commission was assembled, headed by the Prosecutor General of Poland, Colonel Kazimir Lipinski ( Polish: Kazimierz Lipiński ). Since the interior ministers of the two countries were on board, versions of the attack were expressed. However, the results of inspections showed that before the collision with the ground, the structural integrity of the aircraft was not broken, and all the equipment worked properly. It was also established that before landing the aircraft entered the cloud layer, which in turn was the result of a collision of warm and cold fronts. But at the same time, the crew of the board 012 was quite experienced and more than once flew in bad weather conditions, including at night. In addition, the airport dispatcher watched the aircraft on radar ^[3] .

On April 30, 1973, the investigation commission completed the investigation and on the same day, Prosecutor Lipinski announced that the cause of the disaster was a combination of several weather factors. In the cloud layer, icing was observed, which led to the deposition of ice on the surfaces of the wing and tail. It is not precisely known whether the crew included the anti-icing system , but even if it was turned on, a small layer of ice could still form on the wing, which already worsened the flight characteristics of the aircraft. But besides the cloud layer, the collision of the fronts gave rise to another dangerous weather phenomenon - strong turbulence . According to the commission, in the process of reducing the An-24 fell into a strong downward air flow, which led to a loss of height. The crew tried to rectify the situation, but the flight characteristics of the machine, which had deteriorated due to icing, did not allow them to do this quickly. Also the fatal factor was the fact that the aircraft at that time was located above the hills, which rose above the level of the airfield. The actual height above the ground was only 25 meters, when the board 012, with its tail section, crashed into a pine tree, lost speed, and 220 meters from the point of the first blow to the trees, crashed into the ground ^[2] .

• The crash of the Yak-40 near Semipalatinsk - occurred on the same day
• The crash of the Tu-154 in Smolensk - also belonged to the 36th air regiment

• Aviation Safety Network incident description