Kraków 2008-12-20
The crash of the Polish transport plane Antonov An-12.
Antonov An-12 No. 6344307 nb 50. Delivered on September 29, 1966. In June-July 1967, used as a PLL LOT aircraft with registration SP-LZA. Also in the period from August 1976 until the disaster on May 13, 1977, used as a PLL LOT aircraft.
On May 13, 1977, the An-12 SP-LZA nb 50 aircraft No. 6344307 performed a flight on the Rzeszów-Beirut route (capital of Lebanon). The stopover took place in Varna, Bulgaria, to refuel the aircraft. At that time, 9,400 kg of aviation kerosene were refueled. This amount of fuel was enough to fly to Beirut and back to Varna without having to refuel in Beirut. The distance between Varna and Beirut is 1,230 km. In Varna, fuel was paid in transfer roubles, and in Beirut you would have to pay US$. At that time, many Poles came to Varna, the Golden Sands resort.
The flight to Beirut (LO 6883) was routine. While approaching to land at Beirut Airport, which is located in the Khalden district, it crashed around 8:45 a.m. local time. Beirut Airport was the only civilian port in Lebanon at the time. The entire crew, nine people, died. The plane was carrying a cargo of strawberries to Lebanon. The instruction from ground control in Beirut to proceed to the designated descent path for language reasons was repeated twice. Soon contact with the plane was lost. The plane crashed into a mountainside at an altitude of 700 meters, 8 km from the airport. The village of Aramous (Armroussieh).
Beirut airport was dangerous. The guidance systems did not work, there was no ground service.
The case has not been solved to this day, and its backstage is hidden. All secret by confidential. The revealed radio correspondence of the crew with the tower in Beirut does not add anything to the case. Of course, one can accept the thesis of a crew error and a blow up.
At that time, in our environment, everyone repeated that the plane had been shot down. It is important to know that from 1975 to 1990, there was a civil war in Lebanon in which Syria and Israel were also involved. The second aspect is the issue of the transported cargo. Rumor had it that the plane was carrying weapons. Strictly machine guns, drugs and meat (beef) If so, then we engaged in an unresolvable conflict from which our nation had nothing but tears for loved ones.
Two weeks earlier, during the take-off of the An-12 SP-LZA from Beirut, the machine was hit on the port side. The cannon round pierced the cargo hold plating and left a hole the size of a tennis ball. It wasn't dangerous, but everyone remembered that "someone" had shot at them once.
Before landing in Beirut, the An-12 SP-LZA aircraft was detained at the aviation holding to allow a Bulgarian emergency landing aircraft to pass. Maybe this caused the enemy to track down the Polish plane.
It is not true, according to the Polish-language media, that the crew was inexperienced. Lieutenant Colonel Henryk Bajer had 6,200 hours of air raid time, Lieutenant Colonel Tadeusz Florek had 5,800 hours of air raid time. The rest had 3,000 - 5,500 hours of flight time, and they had been flying Antonov An-12 planes since 1966 and were among the most experienced pilots of transport planes in Poland.
It is true, as those interested know, that the bodies of the victims were brought to Poland, to the Balice airport, in wooden coffins, with metal ones soldered in. Families were not allowed to see the bodies of their loved ones.
Will we ever know the whole truth or will we continue to swim in guesswork and circumstantial evidence? I'm afraid that the lack of decommunization and lustration has strengthened the shadows of the Polish People's Republic, and various commercial means of communication have prey and feed the society with sensation. Many documents relating to the disaster were destroyed. All aircraft documentation and photos were destroyed. Crew; pilot lieutenant colonel Henryk Bajer (ship's captain), pilot lieutenant colonel Tadeusz Florek (first pilot), navigator lieutenant colonel Jan Kowalik, lieutenant colonel Jerzy Grzywalski, major Adam Rybak, captain Janusz Lech, ensign Kazimierz Krupa, NN, NN. Honor their memory!
Written by Karol Placha Hetman