LOT Flight 5055 - Aftermath

Aftermath

The Okęcie Airport fire crew was aware of the emergency; when the plane crashed, they immediately drove towards the crash site, but they did not manage to reach it because the truck was too wide and could not pass between the trees.

The day was warm and sunny, so many people rested in the vicinity of Kabaty Woods; after the crash many of them headed for the site. According to official reports, the site was quickly closed to the public, and no plundering of remains was officially registered. However, some unofficial reports about stealing money and valuable items surfaced later; Halina Domeracka's personal belongings, including her passport, New Testament, photos and glasses were recovered intact from the site, yet 400 U.S. dollars and 10000 Polish zlotys were missing.

Because some burning pieces of hull fell out, several local fires were initiated on the ground, propagated by the dumped fuel; all of them were extinguished by 12:00. A total of 195 firemen from 44 different units participated.

All victims' bodies were dismembered in the crash; from a total of 183 bodies, 62 were never identified.

The first TV and radio news about the crash initially reported that the crashed plane was Il-62M SP-LBD (cn 1138234) "Gen. Władysław Sikorski".

All crew members posthumously received high military and civil decorations: Cpt. Pawlaczyk was given the Officers' Cross of Polonia Restituta, other flight crew members received Knights' Cross of the same order, and the flight attendants received the Golden Cross Of Merit. The state funeral of the crew was conducted on 23 May 1987 at the Northern Communal Cemetery in Warsaw. The graves of the crew of LOT Polish Airlines Flight 007 are located a few hundred meters away.

Two days of national mourning were announced after the crash. Many officials from the entire world, including Pope John Paul II, expressed their condolences to the families of the victims.

The incident's cause was similar to that of LOT Polish Airlines Flight 007's crash seven years earlier. After the disaster of Flight 007, the Polish investigatory commission established that its engine shaft disintegration was the result of metal fatigue, improper alloy preparation resulting in a defective mechanism which was less resistant to fatigue, and a faulty design of the engine shaft. Detection of these faults was possible only after complete disassemblage of the engine and detailed analysis of all its elements, and as such was beyond capabilities of the ground servicing personnel. These concerns were addressed by the Polish Government's Special Disasters Commission in the 1980 inquiry, but the Soviet designers, engineers and scientists disagreed with these findings, stating that the turbine disintegration was the result of engine failure, not its cause.

After Flight 5055's demise, a similar report was sent to Moscow; initially, it was denied (partially because the Soviet engineers and politicians still held a grudge against Poles because LOT Polish Airlines, after purchasing Il-62s in the 1970s, replaced their radionavigational equipment with separately brought and more modern American equipment; it was at the time considered very inappropriate for political reasons), and the Soviet engineers even made their own report, concluding that all damage to the engines were the consequence of the crash, which was caused by pilot error. However, despite pressure and threats from the Soviets, the Polish commission stood by their findings; finally, Soviet engineers and politicians reluctantly accepted responsibility. Soon after the crash, LOT Polish Airlines, still being unable to purchase non-Soviet aircraft, implemented several improvements in the Il-62s' construction:

• doubling the flight controls (an issue raised in the 1980 report, but never addressed by Soviet engineers)
• installing an advanced system of engine shaft vibration detectors in every engine
• installing more advanced smoke detectors in cargo holds (smoke detectors were found to be more reliable than the already used fire detectors) and advanced fire detectors in the engine nacelles
• replacing all flammable components in the cargo holds with nonflammable ones
• mandatory laboratory test of engine lubricating oil after every flight (the test, had it been conducted earlier, would have detected the damage to the bearings)

After the Revolutions of 1989, LOT Polish Airlines started purchasing Boeing 767s for their transatlantic destinations. The last Polish Il-62 was sold to Ukraine in late 1991.