Photo of SP-LBG is dated April 18th 1987.
Aircraft Photo:
[ Ссылка ]
Accident Details:
[ Ссылка ]
On May 9th, 1987, a Soviet Il-62 aircraft operated a passenger flight on the Warsaw - New York route. There were 172 passengers and 11 crew members on board. The flight crew consisted of:
Captain: Zygmunt Pawlaczyk
First Officer: Leopold Karcher
Flight Engineer: Wojciech Klossek
Navigator: Leslaw Lykowski
Flight Operator: Leszek Bogdan
Flight Engineer Instructor: Ryszard Chmielewski
Takeoff occured at 10:18. The pilots were climbing to flight level 310, when suddenly at 10:41 the engine suddenly caught fire and decompression began. The crew began to descend to 13,200 ft and dump fuel. The closest airport where the Il-62 might land was Gdańsk, but landing there was not possible because the crew could not dump enough fuel for the emergency landing attempt also the elevator control systems had failed. Soon the fire spread to another engine and to the luggage compartment. The emergency fuel dumping pumps were also malfunctioning; sometimes they stopped functioning at all, only to resume dumping fuel minutes later. At the moment of the crash, around 32 tons of fuel were still in the tanks.
The aircraft was approaching runway 33 at Warsaw Airport. by this point, smoke was already coming out of the plane and small parts were falling off. Soon there was a complete failure of all systems.
The fire also deformed the aft fuselage. Pilots lost control and at 11:12 the plane crashed 3,5 miles from the airport at 265 knots speed.
According to the Polish investigatory commission, the cause of the crash was the disintegration of an engine shaft due to faulty bearings inside the number 2 engine, which seized, causing extensive heat. The bearings concerned were roller bearings; each was designed to have 26 rollers inside, but because the supply of the rollers to the factory was delayed — while the bearings had to be finished on time due to expiring contracts — each bearing had only 13 rollers.
