Draft:Air disaster near Piaseczno

Air crash near Piaseczno - the crash of a ten-seat PLL LOT Lockheed Electra passenger plane flying from Cracow to Warsaw, which occurred on November 11, 1937 at about 16:43, near the village of Mysiadlo near Piaseczno near Warsaw.

The aircraft was part of a batch of four purchased by LOT in early 1936. It was piloted by Mieczyslaw Witkowski, one of the most experienced passenger aviation pilots in pre-war Poland, known as the "air millionaire" due to the number of kilometers flown.

Course of events
The plane took off from Cracow at 2:20 p.m. and was expected in Warsaw before 3:30 p.m. Atmospheric conditions over Warsaw were bad - the cloud base was 30 m and visibility was about 400 m, and it was raining heavily. A Romanian plane, flying from Lviv, came over the Warsaw airport at that time, and due to running out of fuel, was the first to begin landing. Due to the lack of visibility, the planes had to land blindly using radiogoniometers. After the Romanian plane landed, the plane from Cracow proceeded to land at 3:45 p.m. Due to worsening visibility, the traffic manager of the Warsaw airport ordered the landing to be aborted and departed for Poznan. However, the Poznan airport notified of the sudden deterioration of the weather and the lack of conditions for landing. Meanwhile, at the Warsaw airport, the cloud base increased to 40 meters, and the field of view increased to 700 and then 800 meters. So at 4:18 pm, pilot Witkowski began a second raid on the goniometric station. At 4:22 pm he reported that he was flying at an altitude of 600 m. The field of view around the airport then increased to 2,000 m. At 4:30 p.m., the pilot reported that he was making a turn at an altitude of 350 m, in accordance with procedure, and began lowering the flight to 150 m. At a distance of 15 km from the airport, he flew at an altitude of 100 m, reduced speed and began to release the landing gear. Pilot Witkowski then let radio engineer Zygmunt BIuszcz know that the altimeter was not working properly. Then, at 4:38 p.m., he was instructed by the airport to fly at 100 meters, to which he replied that he was at 60 meters. For unknown reasons, the plane then deviated to the east, which the pilot tried to correct. At 4:43 p.m., communication with the plane broke down.

During the landing, passengers were first instructed to stop smoking, then they noticed a control light in the cockpit indicating landing approach, and finally the pilot asked passengers to remain calm. At this point, there were two strong shocks and a blinding flash.

Arriving at the road from Piaseczno to Warsaw, the plane suddenly encountered wooden poles of the high-voltage electricity grid. At an altitude of 8 meters at 200 km/h, he hit the pole with his left wing, cutting the top of the pole and losing the wing tip. It then slammed its tailplane into the wires, ripping them off, causing an electrical discharge and damaging the rudders. The plane fell on its right wing, which was shattered. The detached engine flew sideways for several dozen meters. The front of the plane slammed into the ground, the detached fuselage was about 50 meters away. The commission investigating the accident determined that the pilot Witkowski managed to shut off the fuel supply to the engines, which prevented the explosion.

Rescue operation
Rescuing the injured passengers was first handled by radio engineer Bluszcz, himself also injured. Quickly on the scene of the crash appeared residents of the village of Mysiadlo, who, having stopped the bus going to Piaseczno, asked to notify the authorities of the accident and call for help. As a result, a doctor from Piaseczno arrived several minutes after the accident. Coincidentally, a company of tanks returning from Warsaw from a parade on the occasion of the National Independence Day appeared at the site of the crash, from which soldiers proceeded to provide assistance. It was not until an hour later, due to softened roads, that ambulances from Warsaw arrived.

During the rescue, "not a single trinket was lost and all passengers received their luggage intact."

Causes of the crash
Investigations by the commission appointed to determine the causes of the crash focused on the discrepancy between the altitude reports given by the aircraft to the control tower and the actual altitude of eight meters at which the wing struck an electrical grid pole. Both crew members, pilot Witkowski and radio engineer Bluszcz, testified that during the final phase of the flight, both pressure altimeters consistently reported an altitude of 60 meters. It seemed unlikely, however, that both altimeters would have suffered an identical malfunction at the same time. It was concluded that the altimeters were operational. It was hypothesized that the rapid changes in weather during the landing were related to rapid changes in atmospheric pressure along the route, causing the pressure altimeters to not indicate the correct altitude. The commission ultimately concluded that the pilot probably did not set the altimeters to the correct pressure. In addition, at the crash site, the cloud base was not 40 meters as at the airport, but only 25 meters. In difficult atmospheric conditions, the pilot Witkowski became nervous and, not relying on the goniometric data, sought to gain visual contact with the ground, as a result of which he was "below the altitude required by the regulations defining the conditions for landing at ZZ" (blindly) and a collision with power poles 6 m high, located, however, on the landing route on elevated ground, occurred.

According to other sources, the cause of the crash was different - the author of the book was at the radiogoniometer at Okęcie Airport. Capt. Witkowski, in accordance with the "ZZ" landing procedure, received the signal "we hear your engines", which meant the immediate proximity of the aircraft to the runway. According to the procedure, the captain lowered the flight ceiling according to the altimeter to 80 meters. Meanwhile, the noise ("we hear your motorcycles") was the result of the passage of a column of tanks returning near Okecie Airport from the November 11 parade. In itself, the lowering of the ceiling to 80 meters would not have caused the catastrophe had it not been for a disconnected static pressure sensor cable. As a result of the disconnection of this cable and the offset of the side window in the cabin (for navigation purposes), altimeters showed an overestimation of the plane's altitude above the terrain. As a result, the aircraft collided with terrain obstacles and was destroyed. After an investigation, Capt. Witkowski was cleared of any wrongdoing and allowed to fly after treatment.

Victims
The crash resulted in the deaths of passengers seated at the rear of the plane, as the front part up to the point where the fuselage joins the wings as a stronger survivor. The passengers who lost their lives on the spot or before reaching the hospital were Janina Maria Kostanecka, daughter of the industrialist Jan Gotlib Bloch and wife of the former chairman of the PAU and former rector of Jagiellonian University Kazimierz Kostanecki, their son Dr. Jan Kostanecki, assistant professor of economics at Jagiellonian University, Jerzy Gablenz, an industrialist and musician from Krakow, and a Swedish citizen named Bergrin from SKF. Eight people were wounded, including Kazimierz Pelczar, professor of general pathology at Stefan Batory University in Vilnius, Pelagia Potocka, daughter of Franciszek Potocki, and both members of the crew: Mieczyslaw Witkowski suffered an open fracture of a shin bone, and Zygmunt Bluszcz suffered head and facial wounds and general bruising.

Similar disasters
The crash near Piaseczno was the third consecutive crash of a Lockheed L-10 Electra aircraft in the colors of LOT Polish Airlines. On December 1, 1936, an identical plane piloted by Jozef Bargiel crashed near Malakasa near Athens, while on December 28, 1936, a crash occurred near Succe