In a report submitted by the commander of the “Karpaty” Army’s aviation to the Chief of Air Force Command on September 6, 1939, concerning the previous day, the following entry appears: “The 31st Squadron carried out 3 reconnaissance missions and the 56th Squadron 8 reconnaissance missions; one ‘Karas’ did not return from reconnaissance, with crew: 2nd Lt. [Adam] Szajdzicki Adam, Cpl. pilot [Leon] Kegel Leon, and Pvt. 1st Cl. gunner Skorczyk Józef. Ref. No. 656-34/Op. Air. Commander of Karpaty Aviation Tuskiewicz [Olgierd] Lt. Col.”
On the fifth day of the war, the crew of 2nd Lt. observer Adam Szajdzicki, Cpl. pilot Leon Kegel, and Pvt. 1st Cl. aircraft gunner Józef Skorczyk received orders to reconnoiter the area around Nowy Targ – Rabka. On the return flight from the reconnaissance, near Grybów, the crew of the PZL 23 “Karas” aircraft noticed they were experiencing serious technical problems. The engine of the “Karas” suddenly began to vibrate violently, and reducing the RPM did not help. The aircraft was rapidly losing altitude; landing in the mountainous Beskid terrain was out of the question, so the crew commander, 2nd Lt. observer Adam Szajdzicki, decided to bail out by parachute.
When the “Karas” was at an altitude of about 700 meters, three parachute canopies appeared against the ground — aviation luck smiled on all three — 2nd Lt. observer Adam Szajdzicki, Cpl. pilot Leon Kegel, and Pvt. 1st Cl. aircraft gunner Józef Skorczyk landed safely […]. However, crew commander 2nd Lt. observer Adam Szajdzicki suffered a serious injury upon landing, caused by a damaged parachute. This later affected his service — due to spinal ailments, he was assigned as ground echelon commander of the Squadron.
The aircraft’s crew landed on farmland in Falkowa, while the aircraft itself crashed in the area of Brusnik before the eyes of the residents of Styrki. The sight of the burning aircraft and the three parachutists caused enormous excitement among the residents of Brusnik and Falkowa. Maria Brończyk, who ran toward the parachutists, recalled:
“It was a sunny day when a large aircraft appeared over the fields of Falkowa. I was in the field in front of the house when I suddenly saw a large aircraft; I heard the loud sound of the aircraft’s engine, but something must have been wrong because three parachutes appeared against the sky. One of the airmen, descending to the ground, flew past my sister, who fell over in fright. The airmen landed close to one another on the manor fields, and a large crowd of people from Falkowa ran toward them. Before the war, the police in the village had told everyone what to do in case of an enemy parachute landing, and so everyone who ran was armed with whatever they could find — pitchforks, rakes, scythes, etc. — thinking these were Germans. However, the inevitable beating did not take place because the airmen began shouting that they were Poles, and shortly after, the village headman from Brusnik — Pawel Dyngosz — appeared, prevented the altercation, and took the airmen to Brusnik.”
The airmen were checked by Polish infantrymen and escorted to an infantry unit in Tarnów, from where the crew of the 31st Reconnaissance Squadron was transferred to the Rękawek airfield.
