LOT 767 hero receives honours from President Komorowski
PR dla Zagranicy
Peter Gentle
07.11.2011 15:54
President Bronislaw Komorowski has awarded Captain Tadeusz Wrona one of Poland's highest distinctions for safely landing the stricken Boeing 767 at Warsaw's Chopin Airport last Tuesday.
President Komorowski with Captain Wrona; photo - PAP/Grzegorz Jakubowski
Tadeusz Wrona received the Officer's Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta and his co-pilot, Jerzy Szwarc, received the Knight's Cross, for "outstanding achievements in the service of the state and society; for their professionalism and exemplary attitude in the face of threats to human life."
Captain Wrona crash-landed the LOT 767 after a failure to its landing gear, which meant touching the plane down on its belly without wheels. None of the 231 passengers on board were hurt.
President Komorowski said today at the special ceremony at the Presidential Palace that many had watched the landing live on TV with hearts in their mouths as the plane came in to land, and that he was glad that there was a “happy ending to a dramatic incident”.
Meanwhile, the probe into what went wrong on the Boeing 767 continues with investigators saying that they were studying the black-box recorders in board for clues to the malfunctioning of the landing gear. (pg)