An F‑16 fighter crashed at Radom airport on Thursday night, killing Major pilot Maciej Krakowian and prompting the cancellation of the scheduled weekend airshow. Recordings captured the impact moment, revealing a dramatic mushroom cloud and blaze.
F‑16 Crash in Radom
The accident occurred after 19:00 on Thursday at Radom airport during rehearsal flights ahead of the weekend Air Show. The deceased was Major pilot Maciej Krakowian, a distinguished aviator serving at the 31st Tactical Air Base in Poznań‑Krzęsiny. The Defence Minister, Władysław Kosiniak‑Kamysz, confirmed the death via social media, noting that the pilot was a “great fighter pilot, a great soldier of the Polish Army.” The circumstances of the crash are under investigation, and the Air Show was called off.
Tragedy at the Airport
Recordings that made their way onto the Internet show the moment the aircraft struck the ground. Some of the footage contains profanity.
Witness Accounts of the Impact
“I was watching the plane perform a half loop, just beyond the other side of the runway. It then descended at high speed and impact was… you could see the mushroom cloud, the fire, and the blast sound that came a few seconds later,” said a witness speaking to TVN24. “It was very swift. That was a half loop. The whole approach was very fast and there were dynamic maneuvers that the audience liked,” added another reporter.
Expert Analysis on Possible Causes
“I see that the pilot was probably performing a kind of aerobatic routine, trying to exit the dive or pull the aircraft into a dive take‑off. The big surprise was the use of a booster,” explained Grzegorz Brychczyński from the Association of Aircraft Engineers and Technicians of Polish Communication on TVN24. “For me, I can’t understand why a booster was on – the speed was very high, the G‑load was very high – which left only 10‑15 meters of altitude for them to pull the plane out of that figure,” he added. He further stressed the impact of high temperature: “High temperature reduces air density, which changes the physics. When retracting the plane from a dive into level flight there is an inertia point where the engine must overcome gravity. It’s obvious that they fell short of those 10‑15 meters to recover the aircraft.”
Source: Gazeta, TVN24, Stowarzyszenie Inżynierów i Techników Lotniczych Komunikacji RP, Władysław Kosiniak‑Kamysz, Grzegorz Brychczyński
