A Polish airliner that had taken off from Newark Airport with 231 people aboard made a dramatic crash landing Tuesday in Warsaw — and everybody survived. Hit the jump to read the rest of the story.
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Hero pilot Tadeusz Wrona managed to land the Boeing 767 on its belly after the plane’s landing gear failed to deploy.
Video footage showed the jet skidding on its fuselage down the airport’s main runway and a small fire erupting from one of the wings.
It was quickly doused by firefighters spraying foam and the passengers were all safely evacuated.
“There was no panic among the passengers,†said Marcin Pirog of LOT, the Polish national airline. “The cabin crew prepared them for the emergency landing well.â€
Wrona and his co-pilot, Jerzy Szwartz, landed the plane “perfectly,†he said. “It is the first time a LOT plane had to land without the landing gear out.â€
No injuries were reported and all flights to Poland were diverted to airports in Lodz, Gdansk and Krakow while investigators checked out the plane and debriefed the crew.
Wrona and Szwartz and their crew were hailed as heroes by Polish president Bronislaw Komorowski.
Wrona reported problems with the landing gear at 1:40 p.m. Polish time as the jet was approaching the airport, Polish media reported.
Two F-16s dispatched by the Polish Air Force quickly confirmed the gear was not coming down.
Seeing no other alternative, Wrona circled the airport for an hour and dumped whatever fuel was left in the tanks in preparation for the emergency landing.
Around 2:40 p.m. Polish time, Wrona alerted the crew and passengers they were about to land.
