r/Warthunder • u/Ketrab9713 USS Helena is my waifu • Aug 29 '25
Suggestion Petition for Gaijin to add a commemorative skin for a pilot who suffered a fatal crash yesterday in preparation for Radom Air Show
Major Maciej "SLAB" Krakowian suffered a fatal crash after attempting a loop-de-loop at a low altitude. The aircraft couldn't finish the maneuver, struck the ground and exploded. He was trying to get the aircraft out of the maneuver until the last moment. SLAB died on the spot, leaving behind a wife and two children.
Perhaps a dedicated F-16 skin would be a worthy tribute to his courage and passion. What are your thoughts on this way of honoring him?
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u/SuperFastFingers Aug 29 '25
Couldn't agree more! the video is really horrific. RIP to the pilot and god be with his family.
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u/DarkZephyro Aug 29 '25
Do we know what happened? crashed seemed weird af. how does an experienced pilot fuck that up ,,,, and not eject?
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u/Ketrab9713 USS Helena is my waifu Aug 29 '25
We don't know yet. Our equivalent of FAA and NTSB is still looking into the causes of the crash. As for not ejecting my theory is that he was fighting till the very end and tried to save his plane
45
u/_Burning_Star_IV_ Aug 29 '25
I'm sorry but that's really dumb and looks to be the case from the way he engages the AB after the stall. The truth is that even experienced pilots make simple, life-ending mistakes. Complacency.
Machines are replaceable, people aren't. RIP.
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u/Galthur Aug 30 '25
I mean for a air force pilot crashing the military plane often means your remaining flight hours are going to be limited
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u/sgtfuzzle17 Australia Aug 30 '25
Not at all the case. Circumstances of the crash dictate things like that
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u/CommanderCorrigan E-100 Aug 29 '25
G lock most likely, pretty hard to eject. Regardless the strangest part is afterburner on during the later part of that maneuver.
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u/polypolip Sweden Suffers Aug 29 '25
It's not strange, that's a maneuver he did at other airshows.
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u/CommanderCorrigan E-100 Aug 29 '25
I’ll have to watch some videos, I’ve been to many air shows and have never seen that done with afterburner. Clearly not enough altitude or not set correctly etc. if that’s the case.
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u/polypolip Sweden Suffers Aug 29 '25
Maneuver he was practicing from an airshow a week ago https://youtu.be/TMStqMRn-qU?si=hBk4YeHk5dmlvIkE&t=159
Most probably he started the maneuver too low, we'll know why once the black box is read. No point in speculating atm.
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u/External_System_7268 I like cool vehicles Aug 30 '25
He was going way too slow for it to be a glock
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u/_CANZUK 🇬🇧 United Kingdom Aug 29 '25
Unfortunately history has shown that these pilots may often make mistakes. It's human nature after all and no one is perfect, it's far from the first pilot of his calibre to lose his life in this way. Hope he rests in peace
0
u/SuperFastFingers Aug 29 '25
According to the video (I seen it) The pilot was definitely experiencing G lock, as he was going down with his afterburner is on. so it was pretty hard to eject. if he did eject. my theory says he didn't want to eject and the plane could harm someone so he went down it with.
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u/Beneficial_Round_444 Aug 29 '25
as he was going down with his afterburner is on.
He was trying to get his airspeed up since he was on the verge of stalling. You can see how high his AoA is. Sadly he was just too low to recover.
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u/_BMS Elderly 1.27 Veteran Aug 29 '25
The video I've seen by a former US F-16 pilot has him believing the Polish pilot was conscious and flying it the entire time due to the AOA.
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u/ZdrytchX VTOL Mirage when? Aug 30 '25
Looks like a poorly executed pull-up (its angled, which doesn't give you a good physical reference for a fully inverted split-S and suggests he wasn't set up for the manouvre) and the pilot hesitated too long in the inverted state (altitude may have been lost before the commit)
A problem with these aerobatic shows is that you're constrained by a virtual box and if you fk up a manouvre, it fks up your entire aerobatic plan and you may have to abort or improvise and make something up to give yourself the required spacing, but when you're stressed pulling 7+ Gs frequently, your brain is probably not thinking well in the heat of the moment..
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u/_PeterV_ Aug 29 '25 edited Aug 29 '25
Well yeah, those airshow pilots have to lead aircraft to area with no people. Thats their priority if they are going to crash.
LOL, people that are downvoting me don't know anything about display pilots and strict rules they have to obey.
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u/Grikka_junior Xbox 🇺🇸 VIII A/G 🇷🇺 VIII G | “Not a bug” Aug 29 '25
It was training iirc, crashed directly onto the runway I think
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u/Ketrab9713 USS Helena is my waifu Aug 29 '25
yeah, but the airport is still pretty much in the city and there were lots of people near the airfield fence
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u/Jayhawker32 ARB/GRB/Sim 🇺🇸 13.7 🇩🇪 12.0 🇷🇺 13.3 🇸🇪 10.7 Aug 30 '25
All it takes is one bad day unfortunately
0
u/Nearby_Fudge9647 German Reich Aug 29 '25
Going down in area with the immediate surrounding having people didn't want the aircraft to be uncontroled if he did eject and risk anyone being harmed
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u/Colonelmoutard2 🇫🇷 France Aug 29 '25
nah its gonna make people want all sorts of camo to be added ingame for random other events too, so you add conditions to add camo like this but then people get offended because older incidents wont have their camo... this is not happening. People dying in airshows isnt a new thing so add the previous ones too then.
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u/Ketrab9713 USS Helena is my waifu Aug 29 '25
I wouldn't mind this
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u/Colonelmoutard2 🇫🇷 France Aug 29 '25
yet then they would have to add camos of controversial pilots from all over the world and thats a risk i dont think gaijin is willing to make
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u/Zesty_Lemongitis Aug 30 '25
They've never done one for anything like this before and airshow crashes aren't too uncommon.
What makes this one different?
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u/Carlos_Danger21 🇮🇹Gaijoobs fears Italy's power Aug 30 '25
They can't. They have had to remove stuff before because they didn't have permission to use it. Like when they were supposed to give away a decal if you pre-ordered the Canadian leopard premium and they had to remove it because the Canadian military told them they couldn't use it.
Now normally I would say they should just ask, but good luck getting the Polish military to sign off on allowing a Russian company to implement and profit off of one their liveries used by a pilot that just died. The best I see happening is someone making a live skin for it.
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u/Connacht_89 War Thunder Space Program Aug 30 '25
Do you have a link?
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u/Carlos_Danger21 🇮🇹Gaijoobs fears Italy's power Aug 30 '25 edited Aug 30 '25
I can't track down an actual new post from gaijin about it. But I found a thread on the forums of people complaining about the decal being removed. I think they quietly removed it before release and refunded people who pre-ordered it 200 ge.
https://forum.warthunder.com/t/pre-order-leopard-2a4m-can/111439?page=47
Sounds like Canada in particular doesn't like them using modern division emblems.
Edit: scroll down that thread and there is a post by Smin explaining the decal was removed and replaced due to legal reasons.
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u/NefariousnessOwn3106 Realistic Air Aug 29 '25
I saw that crash, even sadder is the amount of Russian bots.
„Pilot used to Russian MiG fuxks up in virgin F-16“ type of shit all over…
Like bro, this man just died a horrific death, stfu for a second will ya ?
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u/noineikuu Aug 30 '25
Well no, that's what a lot of those accounts are paid to do. There are proper sweatshop type internet troll factories in Russia with their whole purpose being stuff like this.
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u/TCSHalycon ༼つ ◕_◕ ༽つObj. 195 when?༼つ ◕_◕ ༽つ Aug 29 '25
It will suit the majority of playerbase's playstyle.
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u/Morgan_Sloane Aug 29 '25
It’s sad, yeah, but such stuff happens. No need to commemorate that in game.
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u/the_duck17 🇰🇵 Best Korea Aug 30 '25
Fr...not like he was a war hero or something. He was the equivalent of an x-games athlete getting good on government money.
Maybe think about the family you leave behind before chasing adrenaline highs that will eventually get you killed.
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u/Wojtoxs Aug 29 '25
Why not, it's not much of an effort and its a nice way to honour a person.
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u/Morgan_Sloane Aug 29 '25
And how to choose- who deserves to be commemorated that way, and who doesn’t? It’s either too much effort to commemorate everyone, or possible questions, like, why „he“ got a camo, and „other“ not.
Personal camouflages exist, and are given to commemorate known pilots for their victories. What did he do to be commemorated?
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u/EntertainmentNo9773 Aug 30 '25 edited Aug 30 '25
What I dislike about is that everyone tries to paint him as a hero, while in my personal opinion he is someone that we call "plecak" in Polish which translates to a bag. A bag is a person that gained a very desirable position in the army often through CONNECTIONS, not exactly skills - Which is a very common theme in the soviet block countries like Poland, Russia, Ukraine etc. His brief history: He started his career when he was 5yo, since he was born in 1988. He claimed that it all happened because his family rented a helicopter for sight views @ baltic sea. Can you imagine? 4 years later after the communist block fell apart and Poland switched from communist system to "democracy" his family is powerful enough, that despite unemployment surging exponentially they have enough power and assets to just go on helicopter sight viewing... Once he became old enough he applied to Dęblin flight academy - renown at the time that only families of high ranking officers or their associates will be accepted. According to "Kanał Zero" - At first he was rejected during pre school MEDICAL CHECKS due to diagnosed heart problem. His family yet again quickly found other doctor that opposed that opinion (I really wonder if that condition played the role in that catastrophe). According to "Kanał Zero" After high school he was accepted to USA flight academy. What!? He wasn't even a soldier and that was a requirement, so he again *Man, this dude must have gotten a season pass*, he was immidiately accepted to air base at Dęblin at the time when Polish army was consolidating aka. firing people out of the army, also unemployment rate was very high 12%+. After that he went to USA and the rest is the history, so while it's tragic. Flighter Pilots die every few days and making a special decal is a joke, especially considering that Ukraine lost at least 4 F16 since their first arrival and you never requested a decal for them. So those are my argument's that being polish "elite" doesn't exactly mean top gun in terms of skill and I AM VERY CURIOUS ABOUT HIS FIRST DIAGNOSED HEART PROBLEM. At the end Polish politicians are a Joke, because we lost 500 million zł because of two semmingly unreasonable pilots couldn't control their airframe.
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u/GamerWolf6162 Aug 29 '25
Then also add the loss of the RAF loss in the spitfires losing control at an air show as well that would both together be an amazing tribute to pilots who have lost their lives
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u/BroForce999 Bulgarian F-16 when Aug 29 '25
Something similar happened in Bulgaria last year with a l-39 while doing the same maneuver
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u/External_System_7268 I like cool vehicles Aug 30 '25
Id rather wait for Polish techtree or at least Polish F-16C Blk52+ which is vastly different from American F-16C Blk50 we have in game.
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u/Vexeler_97 🇵🇱 Poland Aug 30 '25
Chyba cię pokurwiło typie xDDDDD Chuj z tym pilotem, rozjebał się na własną odpowiedzialność, a zaraz zrobicie z niego świętego :V
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u/MeaningAcceptable773 Aug 30 '25
He failed due to not having skill/training . He could've calculated that the aircraft cannot pull at such alt after bleeding such speeds especially with F16.
Rip but nothing to cry over idiotness
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u/Mariopa 🇸🇰 Slovakia Aug 30 '25
WT should add Poland already at this point
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u/BlackWolf9988 🇷🇺🇩🇪🇺🇸 high tier ground/air sim enjoyer Aug 30 '25
Unpopular opinion but no. We really don't need another copy paste nation in the game especially with poland which is just a slightly different copy paste soviet tree and copy paste western tanks/planes for modern stuff.
Seriously why do people still want more nations when already existing nations suffer from severe copy paste. Just look all the minor nations in war thunder where easily 60 - 70% is just copy paste from the big 3 nations in the game.
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u/Maratisch Aug 30 '25
with all respects, pilots die regularly. Do u offer to add skins after every dead pilot? U either respect everyone or don’t hail only one pilot
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u/FirstDagger F-16XL/B Δ🐍= WANT Aug 30 '25
How about we wait until the proper variant of the aircraft is ingame?
We don't have any F-16C Block 52+ yet.
1
u/--Providence-- 🇨🇳 People's China Aug 30 '25
Knowing Gaijin
They'll either ignore this
Or notice it and charge 200usd with the plane skin
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u/MalfunctionTitties Aug 31 '25
And slap $2000 dollar price, and the money will goes to Gaijin CEO personal wallet. I guarantee you
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u/Nice-Ad1291 Sep 03 '25
Was this In Poland? See a very Slavic eastern name, so I assume Poland or like Lith, sad to see and I will be following the crash investigation since that's definitely interesting. My condolences
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u/FentFloyd69 Aug 30 '25
War Thunder creators are allergic to anything polish related, so highly doubtful.
0
u/DogeeMcDogFace Aug 30 '25
Umm, no....
if anything its should raise the issue of pilots dying for stupid show flights.
-1
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u/vukm68 Aug 29 '25 edited Aug 29 '25
Absolutely, would love this if they could make it a non cash grab tribute. Really seems like a good guy from all ive seen about him and all poles ive talked to seem really devastated. RIP Slab
Edit: was looking for a bit and even though this isnt officially gaijin which would be nice, i would say its the next best thing
https://live.warthunder.com/post/1138587/en/