Balkan Bulgarian Airlines Flight 107
| Balkan Bulgarian Airlines Flight 107 | |
|---|---|
 Identical Tupolev Tu-134 from 1979 |
|
| Accident summary | |
| Accident type | unknown |
| place | Near Gabare ( Bulgaria ), 130 km northeast of Sofia Coordinates: 43 ° 19 ′ 39 ″ N , 23 ° 52 ′ 23 ″ E |
| date | March 16, 1978 |
| Fatalities | 73 |
| Survivors | 0 |
| Aircraft | |
| Aircraft type | Tupolev Tu-134 |
| operator | Balkan Bulgarian Airlines |
| Mark | LZ-TUB |
| Departure airport | Sofia Airport , Bulgaria |
| Destination airport | Warsaw Chopin Airport , Poland |
| Passengers | 66 |
| crew | 7th |
| Lists of aviation accidents | |
On March 16, 1978, a Tupolev Tu-134 crashed on the Balkan Bulgarian Airlines flight 107 from Sofia to Warsaw near the Bulgarian town of Gabare . There were 73 occupants on board, all of whom were killed. As of October 2017, it is the most serious aircraft accident in Bulgaria. The cause of the crash is unknown.
Inmates
On board were representatives of the Polish government such as the Minister of Culture Janusz Wilhelmi and several sports teams. Among them were five cyclists from the Polish national track team (Tadeusz Włodarczyk, Witold Stachowiak, Marek Kolasa, Krzysztof Otocki and Jacek Zdaniuk) who had been in a training camp in Bulgaria. A supervisor had taken the place of the sixth cyclist (Sylwester Pokropek) at short notice because he urgently had to return to Poland. Since Pokropek had misplaced his room key, he was the last to come to breakfast and was therefore determined to return to Poland by car rather than by plane. In addition, several Bulgarian athletes of rhythmic gymnastics were on board, including the trainer Shulieta Schischmanowa .
the accident
At 1:24 p.m., flight captain Hristo Hristov received the take-off permit for the flight. Shortly after 2 p.m. the machine had reached an altitude of 5,000 meters when it suddenly made a 270-degree turn and then disappeared from the radar . The plane hit the open field near Gabar and exploded; the fuel tanks were almost completely full. The explosion could be heard for miles, and eyewitnesses reported that the inmates' bodies were scattered in tiny pieces over a large area. Within a very short time, the scene of the accident was cordoned off by the Bulgarian military.
Soon numerous rumors were circulating in Poland about the cause of the accident. Since the military had been to the scene of the accident very quickly, there was, among other things, the theory that the plane was accidentally shot down by the Bulgarian air force , which had a base nearby.
Memorials
A memorial stone was erected at the accident site, but it is not accessible. Almost 40 years later, a plaque in memory of the dead cyclists was unveiled at the entrance of the BGŻ BNP Paribas Arena Velodrome in Pruszków , Poland .
Web links
- Flight accident data and report LZ-TUB in the Aviation Safety Network (English), accessed on November 12, 2017.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Balkan Bulgarian Airlines flight plan from 1978
- ↑ a b c d e Lost Boys: Poland's forgotten track talents and their tragic end. In: CyclingTips. November 10, 2017, accessed November 12, 2017 .
- ↑ Schischmanowa, Shulieta . In: Taschenlexikon Bulgaria , Bibliographisches Institut Leipzig 1983, page 160
- ↑ Valery Bojanow : Загадка: Как загина легендарната треньорка Жулиета Шишманова (German: Mysterium: How the legendary trainer Shulieta Schischmanowa died). In: www.nabore.bg. Retrieved April 21, 2020 (Bulgarian).
