Det Danske Luftfartselskab

Det Danske Luftfartselskab (DDL)
Focke-Wulf Fw 200 OY-DAM of the DDL, 1939
IATA code :	DD
ICAO code :	DD
Call sign :	unknown
Founding:	1918
Operation stopped:	1950
Merged with:	Scandinavian Airlines System (SAS)
Seat:	Copenhagen
Home airport :	Copenhagen Kastrup Airport
Company form:	Corporation
Fleet size:	18th
Aims:	national, European
Det Danske Luftfartselskab (DDL) merged with Scandinavian Airlines System (SAS) in 1950 . The information in italics relates to the last status before the takeover.

Det Danske Luftfartselskab (DDL) was Denmark's national airline based in Copenhagen until 1950 . The company was founded in 1918 and became part of the Scandinavian joint venture Scandinavian Airlines System (SAS) in 1950 . Until then, it was Europe's oldest continuously operated airline.

de Havilland DH9, 1921

history

DDL was founded on October 29, 1918. The following year, three British Avro 504s were purchased, with which the company's first passenger flight was carried out on October 31, 1919. Then four de Havilland DH9 were procured, with which four passengers could be carried.

The first line opened on August 20, 1920; it ran from Copenhagen via Malmö to Warnemünde and was operated in cooperation with the Deutsche Luft-Reederei . A month later a line to Hamburg was added. In the following years no new routes were opened, but more sightseeing flights were operated.

On April 20, 1925, Copenhagen-Kastrup Airport was opened, which from then on served as the home base of the DDL. In the following year, four four-engine Farman F.121 Jabiru with space for seven to nine passengers were acquired, the first “real” commercial aircraft. With them the routes via Amsterdam to Paris and London were flown.

In 1928 four Fokker F.VIIs were bought, followed by two Fokker F.XIIs in 1933 . At the beginning of the 1930s a Junkers Ju 52 / 3m with 16 passenger seats was procured.

In 1938 two Focke-Wulf Fw 200s were put into operation, designed for 26 passengers. They carried the aircraft registration numbers OY-DAM, Dania (delivered July 14, 1938) and OY-DEM, Jutlandia (November 1938). With them, the route network was expanded to Oslo and Stockholm . In 1939, 45,000 passengers were carried before the German crew limited flight operations to domestic flights and flights to Germany and Austria.

On April 8, 1940, the Fw 200 Dania was confiscated by the British after landing in Shoreham, England. It was then used by the BOAC as a G-AGAY until it was taken over by the Royal Air Force under the registration number DX177 . On July 12, 1941, she rolled over the runway end at White Waltham Airfield, collided with a mower and was irreparably damaged.

After the end of the war, DDL only had two Fokker F.XII and one Focke-Wulf Fw 200. In autumn 1945 DDL purchased three used Douglas DC-3 military transporters and took over two Boeing B-17s from the Swedish AB Aerotransport (ABA) , converted to passenger planes former bomber of the United States Army Air Forces .

In May 1946 two brand new Douglas DC-4s were put into service.

On August 1, 1946, DDL signed a contract with Det Norske Luftfartselskap (DNL) and Svensk Interkontinental Lufttrafik AB (SILA) to form the joint Overseas Scandinavian Airlines System (OSAS) consortium . At that time, the consortium agreement for SAS was only valid for long-haul flights to North and South America. European and domestic flights continued to be operated independently of one another by the companies DDL and DNL as well as the Swedish AB Aerotransport (ABA).

DC-3 OY-DDI, two Vikings in the background

The remaining Focke-Wulf Fw 200 Jutlandia had survived the war, but was irreparably damaged in a crosswind landing on the British airfield Northolt on September 4, 1946 (see section Incidents).

From March to July 1947 five new Vickers Vikings were taken over.

By 1947, the number of Douglas DC-3s had risen to 20.

On April 18, 1948, DDL, DNL and ABA (into which SILA was merged on July 1, 1948) signed an agreement on cooperation in the additional European SAS (ESAS) consortium. One began with the repainting of the aircraft in a common color scheme, although they were still operated by the individual companies.

In May and June 1948, two brand new Douglas DC-6s were finally put into operation.

In September 1949, the three Vickers Vikings remaining after the two accidents were handed over to the Egyptian Misrair .

On February 8, 1951, all short and medium-haul flights from DNL, ​​DDL and AB Aerotransport, including aircraft and personnel, were merged into SAS. For legal reasons, this final merger of the entire company came into effect retrospectively on October 1, 1950. The companies, including DDL, continued to exist as the parent companies of SAS and were renamed SAS Danmark A / S, SAS Norge ASA and SAS Sverige AB in 1996. It was not until 2008 that all companies were merged into the SAS Group and thus ceased to exist.

Destinations

In the summer of 1945, immediately after the end of the war, DDL resumed the first two new routes abroad. They led from Copenhagen via Malmö to Stockholm and via Aalborg to Gothenburg. By the end of the year, the routes to Amsterdam , Geneva , London and Paris had been added, as had Brussels in 1946 . In the Danish domestic traffic in 1946 the cities of Aalborg , Aarhus and Rønne ( Bornholm ) were served from Copenhagen .

By February 1948, the route network had become significantly more extensive. In Great Britain, five other destinations were flown to in addition to London, in the German-speaking countries Hamburg, Frankfurt, Zurich and Geneva. Marseilles, Nice, Rome, Brindisi, Athens and Istanbul were served under their own DDL flight number, i.e. not by SAS, as were Belgrade, Budapest, Bucharest and finally Lillehammer in Norway in the Balkans.

fleet

Vickers Viking OY-DLE

The following types of aircraft were used at DDL:

Fleet at the end of operations

• 14 × Douglas DC-3
• 2 × Douglas DC-4
• 2 × Douglas DC-6

Previously deployed aircraft

• 3 × Avro 504
• 2 × Boeing B-17
• 4 × De Havilland DH.9
• 2 × Focke-Wulf Fw 200
• 4 × Fokker F.VII
• 2 × Fokker F.XII
• 1 × Junkers Ju 52 / 3m
• 5 × Vickers Viking

Incidents

Boeing B-17 OY-DFA, sister aircraft of the OY-DFE that crashed on January 30, 1946

From 1940 to the end of operations in 1950, DDL 7 reported total losses of aircraft. In 3 of them 41 people died.

• On December 18, 1942, a Junkers Ju 52 / 3m of the DDL ( aircraft registration OY-DAL ) coming from Copenhagen had an accident while approaching Vienna a few kilometers from the destination airfield. Two of the sixteen passengers were killed; the others and the three crew members survived.

The Focke-Wulf Fw 200 OY-DEM crashed on September 4, 1946, here in 1938

• On January 30, 1946, the Boeing B-17G of the DDL (registration number OY-DFE , formerly SE-BAR ) came off the runway on landing at Copenhagen Airport , sped into the apron and crashed into a parked Douglas DC-3 ( KG427) of the Royal Air Force . Both machines were destroyed; there was no personal injury.

• On September 4, 1946, the remaining Focke-Wulf Fw 200 Jutlandia (registration number OY-DEM ) was irreparably damaged in a crosswind landing at the British airfield Northolt . People were not harmed.

• On February 17, 1947, a Douglas DC-3 (C-47A) of the DDL (registration number OY-AEB ) was on a cargo flight from Aalborg to Copenhagen. Due to the visibility there, the crew avoided the Malmö-Bulltofta Airport, 25 km away , where landing was also not possible due to fog. On the way back to Copenhagen, due to the fuel situation, an emergency landing was carried out on the ice off the Swedish coast, about five kilometers abeam Malmö. All four crew members survived, the machine burned out.

• On December 29, 1947, a Vickers Viking 1B of the DDL (registration OY-DLI ) crashed . The machine came from Paris and flew in the Øresund during the approach to Copenhagen Airport . All 24 people on board survived.

• On February 12, 1948 at around 1:25 p.m. a Douglas DC-3 (C-53) of the DDL (OY-DCI) collided with the Vogelsberg on its flight from Copenhagen via Frankfurt to Zurich near Ulrichstein , Hesse . During the descent to Frankfurt Airport in bad weather, the pilots reported an engine failure and the inability to maintain the altitude. They planned an emergency landing in a field near Ulrichstein. However, one wing tore off. Of the 21 inmates, 12 were killed.

• On February 8, 1949, a Vickers Viking 1B of DDL (OY-DLU) crashed into the Oresund while approaching Copenhagen Airport near Barsebäck, Sweden . All 28 people on board were killed.

literature

• Leonard Bridgman (Ed.): Jane's All The World's Aircraft, 1945-46. Arco Publishing Company, New York 1946 (Reprint 1970), ISBN 0-668-02390-2 , p. 31b. (English)
• Tony Eastwood and John Roach: Piston Engine Airliner Production List . The Aviation Hobby Shop, West Drayton, 1996, ISBN 0-907178-61-8 . (English)
• Jennifer M. Gradidge: The Douglas DC-1 / DC-2 / DC-3: The First Seventy Years, Volumes One and Two . Tonbridge, Kent, UK: Air-Britain (Historians) Ltd., 2006, ISBN 0-85130-332-3 . (English)
• Åke Hall: Luftens Vikingar - en bok om SAS alla flygplan . Air Historic Research, Nässjö 2002, ISBN 91-973892-3-4 . (Swedish)
• Birger Holmer, Ulf Abrahamsson, Bengt-Olov Näs: SAS flygplan 1946 - 2014 . Svensk Flyghistorisk Förening, Stockholm 2014, ISSN 0345-3413, p. 19. (Swedish)
• Bernard Martin: The Viking, Valetta and Varsity , Air-Britain, Tonbridge 1975, ISBN 0-85130-038-3 . (English)
• Heinz J. Nowarra: Focke Wulf Fw 200 "Condor". The story of the world's first modern long-haul aircraft. Bernard & Graefe, Koblenz 1988, ISBN 3-7637-5855-0 .

Web links

Commons : Det Danske Luftfartselskab  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Gyldendal - Den Store Danske: Det Danske Luftfartsselskab (Danish), accessed on December 3, 2017.
2. ↑ Gyldendal - Det Danske Luftfartsselskab.
3. ↑ Nowarra 1988, pp. 27-31.
4. ↑ Holmer et al. 2014, p. 18.
5. ↑ Eastwood and Roach 1996, pp. 307-308.
6. ^ Hall 2002, p. 10.
7. ↑ Martin 1975, pp. 21-22.
8. ^ Eastwood and Roach 1996, p. 485.
9. ↑ Gradidge 2006 S. 180th
10. ↑ Hall 2002, p. 11.
11. ^ Eastwood and Roach 1996, p. 331.
12. ^ Air-Britain: The Danish Civil Aircraft Register August 26, 48 . Air-Britain (Historians), Books and Pamphlets 48109, 1948.
13. ^ Air-Britain: The Danish Civil Aircraft Register, Second Edition . Air-Britain (Historians), Books and Pamphlets 49109, London July 1949.
14. ↑ Hall 2002, p. 50.
15. ↑ Holmer et al. 2014, p. 22.
16. ^ Gyldendal - Den Store Danske: SAS (Danish), accessed December 3, 2017.
17. ↑ Bridgman / Jane's 1946, p. 31b.
18. ↑ Flight plan of the DDL, December 1946, pp. 8 and 9
19. ↑ Flight plan of the DDL, February 1948, pp. 4 and 5
20. ↑ Hall 2002, p. 12 ff.
21. ↑ Holmer et al. 2014, p. 19.
22. ^ Hall 2002, p. 52.
23. ↑ Accident statistics Det Danske Luftfartselskab - DDL , Aviation Safety Network (English), accessed on December 2, 2017.
24. ^ Accident report Ju 52 OY-DAL , Aviation Safety Network (English), accessed on December 4, 2017.
25. ↑ Joe Baugher: USAF Serials, 42-107067 , accessed December 4, 2017.
26. ^ Accident report B-17 OY-DFE , Aviation Safety Network (English), accessed on December 4, 2017.
27. ^ Accident report Fw 200 OY-DEM , Aviation Safety Network (English), accessed on December 1, 2017.
28. ^ Accident report DC-3 OY-AEB , Aviation Safety Network (English), accessed on December 4, 2017.
29. ^ Accident report Viking 1B OY-DLI , Aviation Safety Network (English), accessed on December 1, 2017.
30. ^ Accident report DC-3 OY-DCI , Aviation Safety Network (English), accessed on February 27, 2016.
31. ↑ Accident report DC-3 OY-DCI ( Memento of the original dated December 4, 2017 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Bureau of Aircraft Accidents Archives, accessed December 4, 2017. 
32. ^ Accident report Viking 1B OY-DLU , Aviation Safety Network (English), accessed on November 23, 2017.