Poland Mourns as Probers Seek Air Crash Cause

Poland went into mourning Sunday for the victims of a Polish airliner that crashed near Warsaw on Saturday, killing all 183 on board, and investigators searched for the cause of the nation’s worst air disaster.

All movie houses and theaters were ordered closed Sunday and today in Warsaw province, and other public entertainment events were canceled.

In Warsaw, 3,000 people prayed at Holy Cross Church for the victims, including 17 U.S. citizens and 21 Polish residents of the United States, some of whom also may have been U.S. citizens.

A government commission began an investigation into the fiery crash of New York-bound LOT Airlines Flight 5055 as authorities considered burying the charred remains of the dead in a mass grave.

Investigators found a note written by a terrified passenger before the Soviet-built Ilyushin 62M plunged into a forest southeast of Warsaw 53 minutes after taking off from Warsaw’s Okecie airport bound for New York.

“The failure of the plane. I don’t know what will happen,” said the brief, disjointed note signed “Domaradzka.” The note was written on a scrap of paper found near the wreckage.

An official at Warsaw’s Okecie Airport said the cockpit crew radioed farewells in the final moments before the jetliner slammed to earth.

Visas Issued

In New York, Polish consular officials began issuing emergency visas Sunday to relatives of victims of the crash. Consul Marek Kaminski said the $18 visa fee was waived and the normal one-week wait for processing was eliminated.

LOT’s New York office said it will provide free round-trip flights, regularly costing $1,632--to and from Warsaw for immediate relatives. LOT’s next New York-to-Warsaw flight leaves Tuesday.

The official Polish news agency PAP said the plane’s flight data recorder has been recovered and is being analyzed.

The commission also is listening to tapes of conversations between the plane’s crew and the control tower at Okecie, as well as with other airports the pilot talked with during his ill-fated attempt to return to Warsaw, PAP said.

It was unclear why the pilot, Capt. Zygmunt Pawlaczyk, tried to return to Warsaw instead of making an emergency landing at a nearby air force field in Modlin after encountering engine trouble 30 minutes into the flight. Witnesses said one or two of the plane’s four engines was on fire shortly before the crash.

Forensic experts said that identification of the victims will be extremely difficult because the bodies were mutilated and burned when the plane crashed three miles from the end of Okecie’s runway.

“Many bodies are still under the plane’s fuselage,” said a forensic expert who refused to give his name.

Parts of bodies were taken Sunday to a facility in central Warsaw, and the forensic expert said that identification efforts possibly will begin by midweek.

“Fingerprints will be checked, and blood, for identification purposes, but this will be possible only in a few cases,” the forensic expert said.

“The government commission is considering whether the remains will be buried in one mass grave or if some, following partial identification, will be buried individually,” he said.