Elbe flight
| Elbeflug GmbH | |
|---|---|
.JPG)
|
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| IATA code : | - |
| ICAO code : | - |
| Call sign : | - |
| Founding: | 1969 |
| Operation stopped: | 1972 |
| Seat: |
Pinneberg , Germany
|
| Home airport : | Lübeck Airport |
| Company form: | GmbH |
| Management: | * Horst Ortwin Möller (President) |
| Number of employees: | 40 (1971) |
| Fleet size: | 17th |
| Aims: | |
| Elbeflug GmbH ceased operations in 1972. The information in italics refer to the last status before the end of operation. | |
The same flight GmbH was a German cargo airline based in Pinneberg . It never started its flight operations.
history
The Pinneberg businessman Horst Ortwin Möller founded Elbeflug in 1969 and acquired 23 Noratlas aircraft from Vebeg , a company for the utilization of old military resources . These had previously been taken out of service by the Air Force , regardless of the low number of flight hours they had in some cases. At the turn of the year 1970/71, 16 machines were delivered, even though one of them had to make an emergency landing due to an engine failure on the delivery flight and finally had to be written off.
Möller used part of the capital of 10.5 million DM brought in by the 329 limited partners - entrepreneurs, lawyers, doctors and freelancers - to procure the machines . He had previously been able to win over his business partners with impressive advertising appearances and impressive profit promises.
A contract was soon announced with the Moroccan export office for agricultural products. With four planes, 100 to 140 tons of fruit and vegetables were to be flown to Germany and France per month. Further inquiries for the other Elbeflug aircraft have also been received from North Africa and the Middle East. In addition, the plan was to be able to get into container transport, and the rather unusual aircraft was seen as a kind of niche filler.
The plan of a lucrative cargo airline never came to fruition, as the Federal Aviation Authority refused to grant the company an operating license due to its opaque corporate relationships. As a result, not even a single machine ever left Lübeck Airport for operational purposes - the condition of the aircraft, on the other hand, deteriorated noticeably.
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In April 1971 two Douglas DC-6s were acquired in order to be able to start flight operations. However, after the repainting and conversion, the planes were withheld by the Swiss Jet Aviation together with three Noratlas due to outstanding invoices. Neither of the two Douglas DC-6s was ever completely handed over to the Elbeflug; only the machine with the aircraft registration D-ABAY made it to Lübeck for a short time during an air show, the Elbeflug wanted to attract new investors with it and several other, freshly delivered Noratlas and show itself from its best side. During the air show it was also announced that options for two Transall C-160 aircraft had been drawn.
The situation of the Elbeflug came to a head when finally several co-shareholders asked for information about the use of their funds. As a result, the tax agent Erich Mayer from Mosbach was commissioned to examine the business books at an unscheduled shareholders' meeting. Möller tried in vain to prevent such a test. To do this, he sent his secretary together with two pilots in a Cessna 172 from Pinneberg, the company's headquarters, to Mosbach and instructed her, on the pretext that the tax office was carrying out an income tax audit in Pinneberg, to regain control of the company's documents. Mayer, however, saw through the plan and put the documents in a vault of the local Volksbank in order to finally continue with his examination. The latter revealed that Möller had transferred part of the capital brought in by the limited partners in his favor directly to the accounts of Elbeflug GmbH - and not to those of the responsible Elbeflug GmbH & Co. KG Luftgeräte-Anlagegesellschaft . Furthermore, Möller had manipulated the cost of an aircraft retrofit from 151,718 francs to 1.2 million francs and the Elbe flight offset his family Christmas vacation, the purchase of a ship and the furniture of a private room. As a result of these results, the Itzehoe Regional Court issued an arrest for the “illegal collection of 21 checks worth 803,847.50 marks” against Möller and forbade him to continue running the business.
In 1972, one officer said ultimately the inability to pay the same flight. Möller and his wife were then arrested for having continued to pay extremely high salaries despite the precarious financial situation; Investigations into suspected breach of trust and fraud have been initiated by the responsible public prosecutor's office. The large amount of amounts that the couple had previously transferred between the countless sub-companies made it difficult for tax investigators and auditors to sift through the bankruptcy estate . In the end, the cheated limited partners got nothing - they didn't get anything back from their money.
In 1977, both Horst Ortwin Möller and Helga Möller were sentenced to long prison terms in a trial for investment fraud.
fleet
The Elbeflug fleet consisted of 17 machines:
The Noratlas D-ACUR , which was written off on the delivery flight due to an engine failure , was later smuggled to Rwanda via a detour. Another machine of the Noratlas type was planned from the outset at Elbeflug for the procurement of spare parts.
After the bankruptcy, the last ten Noratlas, which had not yet been sold in the course of the bankruptcy proceedings, were auctioned off to the scrap dealer Albert Berg. Some of these machines were dismantled, others came to developing countries on sometimes adventurous routes and still others can still be seen in potts park and in Hermeskeil today .
See also
Web links
- Counter-representation by Horst Ortwin Möller to the allegations made against him (in accordance with the Hamburg Press Act) . In: Der Spiegel . No. 12 , 1972 ( online ).
- Photos of the Elbeflug on Airliners.net
Individual evidence
- ↑ Flight International 6 May 1971. (PDF) Flightglobal Archive (English), accessed on 6 February 2016
- ^ Karl-Dieter Seifert: The German air traffic 1955-2000. World traffic, liberalization, globalization (= Die deutsche Luftfahrt . Band 29 ). Bernard & Graefe Verlag, Bonn 2001, ISBN 3-7637-6121-7 , p. 361 .
- ^ A b c Joachim Wölfer: German Passenger Aviation from 1955 to the present day . ES Mittler & Sohn, Berlin / Bonn / Hamburg 1995, ISBN 3-8132-0477-4 , p. 78-79 .
- ↑ a b c d Elbeflug (EFL) - the story. ( Memento of the original from February 12, 2016 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. Lübecker-Luftfahrt.de, January 13, 2014; accessed on February 2, 2016
- ↑ a b c Double bill . In: Der Spiegel . No. 53 , 1971 ( online ).
- ↑ Suspected fraud in connection with the Elbe flight . In: Der Spiegel . No. 53 , 1971 ( online ).
