The 36th Special Regiment of Aviation Transport (; 36 SPLT) was a special aviation regiment of the

Polish Air Force The Polish Air Force () is the aerial warfare Military branch, branch of the Polish Armed Forces. Until July 2004 it was officially known as ''Wojska Lotnicze i Obrony Powietrznej'' (). In 2014 it consisted of roughly 26,000 military personnel an ...

, established in 1945. All of its aircraft were for national public use, the most important being transport of Polish politicians and Ministry of National Defence highest officials & forces commanders. It was headquartered at the 1st Air Base at Warsaw Chopin Airport (formerly Okęcie). Between 1947 and 1974 it operated as ''Special Air Regiment'', earlier as ''Government Transport Squadron''. It was shut down in 2011 and its fleet retired.

Accidents

*On 28 February 1973 a government airliner Antonov An-24W serial number 97305702 (tail number 012), crashed in

Szczecin Szczecin ( , , ; ; ; or ) is the capital city, capital and largest city of the West Pomeranian Voivodeship in northwestern Poland. Located near the Baltic Sea and the Poland-Germany border, German border, it is a major port, seaport, the la ...

, north-west Poland. All 18 people on board were killed (including ministers of the interior of Poland and

Czechoslovakia Czechoslovakia ( ; Czech language, Czech and , ''Česko-Slovensko'') was a landlocked country in Central Europe, created in 1918, when it declared its independence from Austria-Hungary. In 1938, after the Munich Agreement, the Sudetenland beca ...

). *On 4 December 2003 Mi-8 helicopter carrying Poland's Prime Minister

Leszek Miller Leszek Cezary Miller (Polish pronunciation: ; born 3 July 1946) is a Polish politician who served as prime minister of Poland from 2001 to 2004. He has served as a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) in 2019–2024. From 1989 to 1990, Mill ...

crashed near

Warsaw Warsaw, officially the Capital City of Warsaw, is the capital and List of cities and towns in Poland, largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the Vistula, River Vistula in east-central Poland. Its population is officially estimated at ...

, all people on board survived. *On 10 April 2010 one of two Tupolev Tu-154 airplanes (serial number 90A-837; Polish aircraft 101) crash landed in fog at Smolensk North,

Russia Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...

. All 96The list of perished during the Tu-154M Lux plane crash in Smolensk Region
, EMERCOM Russia on board died, including

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It extends from the Baltic Sea in the north to the Sudetes and Carpathian Mountains in the south, bordered by Lithuania and Russia to the northeast, Belarus and Ukrai ...

's President Lech Kaczyński and 42 other officials en route to the commemoration of the 70th anniversary of the

Katyn massacre The Katyn massacre was a series of mass killings under Communist regimes, mass executions of nearly 22,000 Polish people, Polish military officer, military and police officers, border guards, and intelligentsia prisoners of war carried out by t ...

nearby. The crash also took lives of the Chief of the

General Staff of the Polish Army Polish General Staff, formally known as the General Staff of the Polish Armed Forces (Polish language, Polish: ''Sztab Generalny Wojska Polskiego'') is the highest professional body within the Polish Armed Forces. Organizationally, it is an integra ...

and most senior

military A military, also known collectively as armed forces, is a heavily armed, highly organized force primarily intended for warfare. Militaries are typically authorized and maintained by a sovereign state, with their members identifiable by a d ...

commanding officers, the National Bank of Poland governor, the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs and dignitaries in the

government A government is the system or group of people governing an organized community, generally a State (polity), state. In the case of its broad associative definition, government normally consists of legislature, executive (government), execu ...

, vice-speakers and members of the Senate of the Republic of Poland and

Sejm of the Republic of Poland The Sejm (), officially known as the Sejm of the Republic of Poland (), is the lower house of the bicameralism, bicameral parliament of Poland. The Sejm has been the highest governing body of the Third Polish Republic since the Polish People' ...

houses of the National Assembly of the Republic of Poland, and senior members of

clergy Clergy are formal leaders within established religions. Their roles and functions vary in different religious traditions, but usually involve presiding over specific rituals and teaching their religion's doctrines and practices. Some of the ter ...

of various denominations. On 4 August 2011, the regiment was disbanded by the Polish Minister of National Defence as a direct consequence of the 2010 crash. The regiment officially ceased to exist on 31 December 2011; however, the 1st Air Transport Base continues to transport government VIPs by helicopter. Since then all Polish government officials have been using civil aircraft owned by LOT Polish Airlines, mainly two Embraer 175 operated exclusively for government.

Equipment disbandment in 2011

Previously operated transport aircraft including Lisunov Li-2, Ilyushin Il-14, Antonov An-24 and Tupolev Tu-134.

References

The Picture of the Polish Tu-154M Flight Crew as Expert-Flyers Emerges: The Crew Cleared of Any Wrongdoing, by Peter Czartoryski-Sziler for "Nasz Dziennik"
{{Use dmy dates, date=June 2017 Regiments of the Polish Air Force Military units and formations established in 1945 Military units and formations disestablished in 2011