A Polish Fulcrum has crashed near Minsk Mazowiecki yesterday.
On Mar. 4, 2019, another Polish Air Force MiG-29 jet was lost in a crash near the town of Stoczek. According to the reports, the aircraft crashed shortly after take off. The pilot managed to ejected and survived.
The MiG-29 involved in the incident belonged to the Minsk Mazowiecki airbase in Warsaw. The airframe with reg. no. 40, had a portrait of Witold Urbanowicz painted on its v-fins: it was the very same airframe that had taken part to several airshows across Europe, including RIAT, in 2015.
The one on Mar. 4 is the third Fulcrum crash in 15 months: on Dec. 18, 2017 a Polish MiG-29 crashed near the base in Minsk Mazowiecki. The pilot did not eject, but survived. The crash in question is still under investigation. In July last year another crash happened in Pasłęk, near Malbork. In that case, the pilot ejected, but the ejection seat failed, causing his death.
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Another incident occurred on Feb. 15, 2019, when a Polish MiG-29 Fulcrum made an emergency landing at the 22nd AB in Malbork.
Some analysts have suggested the problem deals with the maintenance of the jets: given that 30 years have passed since their introduction into the inventory of the Polish Air Force and due to the fact that the Poland-Russia relations have not been too good over the last decade, the future of the MiG-29 in the Polish military aviation, considering the concern caused by the number of incidents in little more than one year, appears to be quite uncertain now.
