LOT Polish Airlines Flight 165 was a doomed Antonov AN-24 aircraft, registration SP-LTF. The plane operated as a scheduled passenger flight from Warsaw to Krakow Balice airport. Normally the 153-mile flight is a simple short hop, but on April 2, 1969, at 4:08pm local time the flight crashed into a mountain during a snowstorm. All 53 people on board were killed.
In 1969, crash investigation was not what it is today, and so a lot of the known information about the accident actually comes from two newspaper articles that were published in 1994. Of course, that doesn’t mean that no investigation took place, but from the sound of things, the documentation there has been kept classified according to the author who wrote that, “even 25 years after the accident, most documentation on the crash remains classified.” The information the author was able to gather came from the accounts of participants in the rescue action and some members of the accident investigation commission, but they asked for anonymity.
What is known and documented about the accident is that the aircraft took off from Warsaw at 3:20pm local time for a 55-minute flight to Krakow’s Balice Airport. The captain was Czeslaw Dolinski. The first officer received instructions at 3:49pm, to descend to 4,900 feet and to contact Balice control tower after passing Jedrzejów, which was less than 50 miles north of Krakow. At the time of the instructions, a military radar registered the aircraft at 13,000 feet. The pilots informed controllers in Okecie and Balice when the plane had passed the Jedrzejów VOR but there was some confusion when they provided three different passage times a few minutes apart. Shortly thereafter and before 4:00pm, the captain, who had taken over control at that point, called Balice. Dolinski gave his altitude as 12,100 feet, received the local weather report, and then was instructed to descend to 3,900 feet.
At 4:01pm, the aircraft was recorded at 7,900 feet and descending. Several radio exchanges took place between the place and the Balice radar operator over the next eight minutes, with the captain repeatedly asking for his fix and reporting problems with the beacon signal, and the operator asking for the aircraft’s position and altitude to help him find the aircraft on the radar screen. It was as if both the captain and the radar operator were confused as to where the plane was and at what altitude. At 4:05pm, the aircraft was noted near Maków Podhalanski, some 31 miles past Krakow…and at an altitude of 3,900 feet. The last transmission received from the airplane was, “Left turn to further…-” at 4:08.17pm. Seconds after that, radio contact was lost. It was at that moment that the plane crashed on the northern slope of Polica mountain, near Zawoja, southern Poland. the plane was located on the mountain side at an altitude of 3,900 feet.
The official death toll of 53 is still in question. The LOT Flight 165 manifest included 53 passengers and 5 crew members, but two days after the crash Polish press agencies published, 46 surnames, some without an address or name. According to the records, the passengers were 49 Poles, 3 Americans, and a Briton. The official 
accident report, published in 1970, blamed the accident on the captain becoming lost. No one knew why the captain, just before the crash, was flying at low altitude some 31 miles past its intended destination. I don’t suppose it will ever be known for sure, or if it is, the fact that the documentation is classified will keep the truth from everyone anyway.
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