The accident occurred around 7:30 p.m. on Thursday, August 28, while preparing for the Air Show in Radom. The F-16 fighter abruptly lost altitude and fell to the ground. The pilot died at the scene. It has been reported that the Air Show has been canceled.
Before the tragedy Major Maciej "Slab" Krakowian added a photograph in social media
On the same day, a fewer hours before the crash, Major Maciej Krakowian published a photograph on an instagram account of his plane's cockpit. In the photograph he showed a distinctive motion of the tiger and added: "See you over Radom!!! (See you in Radom). The photograph was published on the F-16 Tiger Demo squad Poland profile.
A recording of the pilot's preparations for the shows was besides published earlier.
Major Maciej "Slab" Krakowian served in the 31st Tactical Aviation Base in Poznań-Krzesin. He had over 1,400 hours of raid, of which he spent about 1,200 in the air on F-16.
He besides served as the leader of Tiger Demo squad Poland. He was late honored with the prestigious "As the Crow Flies Trophy" award at the Royal global Air Tattoo 2025 in the UK. This is 1 of the most crucial aviation events in the world.
F-16 plane crash in Radom
As we wrote on Temat.pl, experts commented on possible causes of tragedy. Grzegorz Brychczyński, president of the Association of Aviation Engineers and Engineers of Communication of the Republic of Poland, pointed out that the pilot lacked altitude to bring the aircraft out of the acrobatics.
– I see the pilot was most likely doing any kind of acrobatics, trying to get out of it, trying to get the plane out of the dive. For me the not very understandable situation was the booster, [...] velocity very high, overload very big. [...] He was 10-15 metres advanced to get the plane out of this figure,” TVN24 said.
Reserve Colonel Krystian Son-in-law, erstwhile commander of the 32nd Tactical Air Base in Grace, said that "this is most likely a pilot error". "Of course, the Air Accident Investigation Commission will analyse this situation in terms of equipment reliability. But from what we see in the recordings, it will most likely be qualified as a human error," he said in an interview with RMF FM.
