On 4 December 2003, a

Polish Polish may refer to: * Anything from or related to Poland, a country in Europe * Polish language * Poles, people from Poland or of Polish descent * Polish chicken *Polish brothers (Mark Polish and Michael Polish, born 1970), American twin screenwr ...

Mi-8 The Mil Mi-8 (russian: Ми-8, NATO reporting name: Hip) is a medium twin-turbine helicopter, originally designed by the Soviet Union in the 1960s and introduced into the Soviet Air Force in 1968. It is now produced by Russia. In addition to ...

helicopter operated by the

36th Special Aviation Regiment The 36th Special Regiment of Aviation Transport ( pl, 36 Specjalny Pułk Lotnictwa Transportowego; 36 SPLT) was a special aviation regiment of the Polish Air Force, established in 1945. All of its aircraft were for national public use, the most ...

carrying Poland's Prime Minister

Leszek Miller Leszek Cezary Miller (Polish pronunciation: ; born 3 July 1946) is a Polish politician. He has served as a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) since July 2019. From 1989 to 1990 was a member of the Politburo of the Polish United Workers' Pa ...

crashed near Piaseczno, just outside

Warsaw Warsaw ( pl, Warszawa, ), officially the Capital City of Warsaw,, abbreviation: ''m.st. Warszawa'' is the capital and largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the River Vistula in east-central Poland, and its population is officia ...

. The pilot performed an autorotation landing in a forest following the failure of both engines. The helicopter suffered extensive damage and was written off as a total loss, but despite the severity of the crash there were no fatalities. Fourteen of the 15 people on board were injured, including Leszek Miller, who had two of his thoracic vertebrae broken.

Aircraft and pilot

The helicopter was 26 years old at the time of the crash, and was close to the end of its service life. It belonged to the

responsible for transporting Polish government officials. The pilot of the helicopter was major Marek Miłosz, later promoted to lieutenant colonel.

Cause

The cause of the engine failure was determined to be icing.

Trial

On 10 March 2004, Miłosz was criminally charged with violating flight safety rules and causing the crash. Specifically, the pilot was blamed for not manually turning on the deicing equipment during the flight. The pilot argued that the meteorologic information available to him at the time did not indicate that icing was likely, and hence he was not required to turn on the deicing equipment. He was consulting a thermometer during the flight, but it suffered from a systematic measurement error and hence was unable to warn of icing. In addition, during the flight an unusual thermal inversion occurred; the temperature rose with altitude, which the pilot could not have predicted. In March 2010, the 6-year trial ended with a verdict of not guilty. The judge in the case noted the pilot expertly carried out the difficult autorotation landing and that the passengers survived because of his superb piloting skills. Leszek Miller declared that if he had to fly again in a helicopter in difficult atmospheric conditions, he would choose Miłosz as his pilot.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:2003 Polish Air Force Mi-8 Crash Polish Air Force Mi-8 Crash Mi-8 Crash Aviation accidents and incidents in Poland Polish Air Force Mi-8 Crash 2003 Aviation accidents and incidents involving state leaders Polish Air Force December 2003 events in Europe 2003 disasters in Poland

Aircraft and pilot

Cause

Trial

See also

References