German Lufthansa flight 7
| German Lufthansa flight 7 | |
|---|---|
 A Ju-52 in the colors of Deutsche Lufthansa |
|
| Accident summary | |
| Accident type | Controlled flight into terrain |
| place | approx. 8 km northwest of Seljord ( Norway ) |
| date | October 16, 1944 |
| Fatalities | 15th |
| Survivors | 0 |
| Aircraft | |
| Aircraft type | Junkers Ju-52 / 3mg8e |
| operator | German Lufthansa |
| Mark | D-ADQV |
| Surname | Hermann Stache |
| Departure airport | Berlin-Tempelhof Airport |
| Stopover | Copenhagen Kastrup Airport |
| Destination airport | Oslo Airport Fornebu |
| Passengers | 12 |
| crew | 3 |
| Lists of aviation accidents | |
On October 16, 1944 a Junkers Ju-52 / 3mg8e deviated from the planned course on Deutsche Lufthansa Flight 7 and collided with a mountain about 120 km west-southwest of Oslo in poor visibility. This was preceded by a failure of the on-board radio systems, which made a position determination by radio direction finding impossible. All 15 inmates were killed in the accident.
plane
The Junkers Ju-52 / 3mg8e built in 1943 with the registration D-ADQV and the name Hermann Stache carried out a flight from Berlin to Oslo with a stopover in Copenhagen . The German Lufthansa described this journey as "Line 7" .
Flight history
The aircraft took off at 5:50 p.m. from Copenhagen-Kastrup Airport with the destination Oslo. According to the weather report, there was a closed cloud cover over the entire route that reached down to a height of 300 to 500 meters. In addition, according to the forecast, it was raining over the Skagerrak . When the machine flew over the island of Læsø , a radio direction finding was carried out by the ground stations in Denmark, in which only a slight course deviation was found. Bearings carried out between 18:56 and 18:59 showed that the aircraft was around 15 miles northeast of Skagen . The pilots made radio contact with air traffic control in Oslo at 7:06 p.m. and announced that the landing at Oslo-Fornebu Airport was expected around 8:00 p.m.
At 19:13, a Norwegian radio bearing made it clear that the course of the machine was now deviating considerably to the west. A second bearing at 19:18 showed a slight course correction. The crew requested further bearings from the ground stations, which, however, could not be carried out due to insufficient performance of the on-board transmitter and due to atmospheric disturbances . At the request of the pilots, the radio beacon was put into operation in Oslo at 7:23 p.m. in order to be able to carry out an internal bearing. Five minutes later the crew asked again for the radio beacon to be activated. This was the last radio contact with the plane. Several stations in Denmark and Norway then tried to call the crew. They received no answer, although the machine continued its flight for another 58 minutes. To give the pilots visual orientation, the city of Oslo and several airfields along the Norwegian south coast and in North Jutland were illuminated.
Accident investigation
The pilots lost their bearings after the radio equipment failed and probably flew west of the Oslofjord into Norway. At 19:32, an air traffic control station near Kragerø heard the noise of a very low-flying machine, the crew of which fired white flare cartridges . The aircraft flew on a north-westerly course in the direction of Seljord , where at 19:59 a reporting point on the south bank of Lake Seljordsvatn also heard the noise of an aircraft departing in a north-westerly direction. According to residents, the machine then circled north of Seljord several times near the village of Flatdal with the headlights switched on. The aircraft then went on a south-westerly course, as a result of which it flew towards the 1,355-meter-high mountain Skorvefjell from the north-east . After first touching the ground on a mountain slope, the machine crashed about 5 meters below the summit at 20:26. The wreck was found on October 19, 1944.
The commission of inquiry considered it likely that the pilots assumed they were near Oslo and tried to establish contact with the ground stations by switching on the headlights and firing flare cartridges.
Web links
- Amateur film with recordings from the scene of the accident and the debris left there on youtube.com
- Accident summary on Aviation Safety Network
swell
Coordinates: 59 ° 32 ′ 11 " N , 8 ° 31 ′ 22.9" E