Air accident in Ostend

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Air accident in Ostend
JU-52.jpg

An identical and similarly painted Junkers Ju 52 of the German Lufthansa
Accident summary
Accident type Collision on approach with a building due to poor visibility
place Steene , Ostend , Belgium
date November 16, 1937, 2:47 p.m.
Fatalities 11
Survivors 0
Aircraft
Aircraft type Junkers Ju 52 / 3m
operator Sabena
Mark OO-AUB
Departure airport Munich , German Empire
1. Stopover Frankfurt am Main , German Empire
2. Stopover Brussels , Belgium
Destination airport London , UK
Passengers 8th
crew 3
Lists of aviation accidents

When accident at Ostend on 16 November 1937 came by the crash of a Junkers Ju 52 / 3m ( air vehicle registration number of Belgian society: OO-AUB) Sabena all eleven occupants killed. The liner from Frankfurt am Main with the destination London-Croydon had an accident during an unscheduled stopover in Steene near Ostend ( Belgium ). The cause of the crash was a collision on the approach to landing with the chimney of a brickworks , which the crew had not been able to detect due to thick fog .

The eight passengers included almost the entire family of the former Hereditary Grand Duke Georg Donatus of Hesse and the Rhine , who were on their way to the wedding of their younger brother Ludwig in London . As a result, Ludwig became head of the House of Hesse-Darmstadt , but whose line should die out with him.

Plane and crew

The aircraft used was a three-engine Junkers Ju 52 . The Belgian airline Sabena had eight machines of this type. The aircraft were used on the European route network, which before the Second World War was almost 6000 km. The accident machine (registration number: OO-AUB) was barely a year old.

The three-man crew included the 37-year-old flight captain Antoine Lambotte, who had more than 15 years of flight experience and had completed more than 1.1 million flight kilometers. He was considered one of the most experienced Belgian pilots. 38-year-old radio operator Maurice Courtois and 32-year-old mechanic Lansman (according to other information, Invan Lansmans ) sat with Lambotte in the cockpit .

Flight history

Recorded passengers in Frankfurt am Main

The scheduled flight from Munich to London on Tuesday, November 16, 1937, with scheduled stopovers in Frankfurt am Main and Brussels ( Evere ), was regularly offered by the Belgian airline Sabena. The Ju 52 (registration number: OO-AUB) took off at 10:15 a.m. from the Oberwiesenfeld airfield near Munich and landed in Frankfurt am Main (other sources incorrectly state Cologne as the stopover point.) For the onward flight, eight passengers boarded the OO-AUB, all of which belonged to a travel group around the former Hereditary Grand Duke of Hesse:

The brothers Alexander (left, in 1937) and Ludwig (around 1934/1935) from Hessen

Hereditary Grand Duchess Cäcilie was heavily pregnant with her fourth child at the start of the trip - the assumed due date was six weeks after the flight. The couple's third child, one-year-old Johanna, had been left behind in Wolfsgarten Castle .

The company was on the way to London for the wedding celebrations of Georg Donatus' two years younger brother Ludwig and his fiancé Margaret Campbell Geddes . Ludwig Prinz von Hessen and bei Rhein worked as a culture attaché at the German embassy in London and had met the daughter of the British diplomat and professor Sir Auckland Geddes in Upper Bavaria . The couple decided to get married at the 1936 Winter Olympics in Garmisch-Partenkirchen . The engagement was announced publicly in mid-July 1937. Ludwig and Margaret's plans to marry had been overshadowed by a serious illness on the part of Ludwig and Georg Donatus' father. Ernst Ludwig , deposed as the last reigning Grand Duke of Hesse and the Rhine in 1918 after the November Revolution , had contracted chronic pneumonia in the spring of 1937 after a flu . Tended by his wife Eleonore, he died on October 9, 1937 as a result of the illness.

The marriage date of Ludwig and his fiancée had been postponed from October 23 to November 20, 1937 after the death of their father, again a Saturday and at the same time Ludwig's 29th birthday. The best man should be Joachim Riedesel zu Eisenbach, while the nephews Ludwig and Alexander should act as " pages " at the wedding . The new head of the family Georg Donatus had expressly requested that his brother's marriage should take place as soon as possible, although the official funeral ceremonies in Darmstadt on October 11th and 12th were only a few weeks ago and the father's burial in a grave on the Rosenhöhe was still outstanding. It was also Georg Donatus who persuaded his family to take the plane to London - as a reserve officer in the air force, he was an enthusiastic pilot himself. In London, his family was to live in the apartment of Lord Louis Mountbatten and his wife Edwina Ashley on Park Lane. Eleanor wanted to live with her sister-in-law, the Marchioness of Milford Haven .

Onward flight to Brussels and crash near Ostend

The disaster route of the OO-AUB (this map does not correspond to the exact flight route)

The Ju 52 took off from Frankfurt am Main Airport as scheduled at 1:45 p.m. The flight to Brussels was quick and uneventful before the crew was confronted with heavy ground fog over the Belgian capital. The airline Sabena later stated that it had warned the radio operator about the thick fog at Evere airfield. As a result, a landing in Brussels was decided. The crew received new instructions to continue to the city of Ostend , 80 km away on the North Sea coast. There was the airfield of Steene (also spelled Stene ), where better weather conditions prevailed and two more passengers were to be taken to London. The landing site was a simple field of grass in the shape of a pentagon .

That morning the weather had been sunny at Steene airfield. At around 2 p.m., however, the entire coastal zone was also under a thick bank of fog. Nevertheless, the crew decided to land. The OO-AUB was successfully directed to the airfield by the air traffic controller , where staff drew attention to the exact position with the help of flares. The visibility is said to be only 250  yards (approx. 228 meters), the cloud base was at 160 yards (approx. 146 meters). According to eyewitness reports, the Ju 52 was traveling at about 100  mph (approx. 160 km / h) when it arrived at 2:47 p.m. local time (according to other information 3:47 p.m.) 500 meters from the runway at a height of 60 feet (approx 18 m) collided with the chimney of the Steene brickworks. The right wing was separated from the fuselage of the OO-AUB together with an engine and broke through the factory roof. The machine then turned 180 degrees on its own axis, caught fire, and just a few seconds later fell 50 yards away, between a row of sheds, in front of the factory . A fire quickly spread over the wreck , which had come to a standstill lying on its back.

Factory workers were the first to arrive at the scene of the accident, followed by the fire brigade and the Red Cross - at the time of the crash, the OO-AUB radio operator had contacted the air traffic controller, who overheard the crash. Because of the heavy fire, the rescue workers only reached the wreck after an hour, which burned out completely. All eleven inmates of the Ju 52 were killed. A group of twenty factory workers had taken a meal break near the scene of the accident but got away without injuries. In the factory itself, no one was harmed either, while the chimney hit by the plane is said to have remained intact, contrary to reports to the contrary.

At the time of the crash, the fog had completely cleared over the actual stopover point in Brussels.

Immediate consequences and funeral ceremonies of the von Hessen and Rhine families

Henri Jaspar

The plane crash received media attention worldwide due to the prominent fatalities. Many English-language media outlets also featured the accident on their front pages, including the New York Times , Los Angeles Times and Washington Post . The British daily The Times was supposed to dub the crash " Holocaust of a Family" .

Early wedding

Ludwig and his fiancée Margaret Geddes were informed of the crash at Croydon Airfield while they waited for their loved ones. At first, the couple had been informed that the Sabena's machine was en route before the head of Imperial Airways delivered the misfortune news. Ludwig, the only surviving male descendant of his family after the death of his brother and his two nephews, was treated at the airport and then taken to Lord and Lady Mountbatten. King George VI too . von Great Britain and his wife Elizabeth were quickly informed of the plane crash of the von Hessen and Rhein family and expressed their condolences. On the day of the accident, a state banquet was held at Buckingham Palace , to which the Belgian King Leopold III. was invited. King George of Greece , who was staying in London, as well as George, 1st Duke of Kent and Henry, 1st Duke of Gloucester with their wives also received the message. Former Belgian Prime Minister Henri Jaspar and the secretary of the German diplomatic mission in Brussels, C. Freiherr von Neurath, traveled to the crash site near Ostend to pay homage to the victims.

The following night the bride's father, Sir Auckland Geddes, announced that the wedding between his daughter and Ludwig would be brought forward on the following day in a private setting. The silent wedding took place on the morning of November 17th in London's St Peter's Church in Eaton Square in the presence of, among others, George, 1st Duke of Kent and the Marina, Duchess of Kent , as well as the German Ambassador Joachim von Ribbentrop . The bride and most of the female guests wore black clothing as a sign of mourning, while Lord Louis Mountbatten replaced the late Joachim Riedesel zu Eisenbach as best man. In Darmstadt, mourning flags were ordered on the same day and large crowds gathered in front of the New Palais , the city residence of the once grand ducal family.

Immediately after the wedding, Ludwig and Margaret - who were now considered Hereditary Grand Duke and Hereditary Grand Duchess of Hesse and the Rhine - set off for Belgium to arrange for the deceased to be transferred to Darmstadt. The bride and groom traveled by ferry to Ostend, where they arrived on the evening of November 17th. The corpses, burned beyond recognition, were identified on the same day and taken to the Ostend civil hospital. There, their coffins were laid out in a hospital room that had been converted into a chapel by nuns, including Cecilia’s baby, who had been born prematurely as a result of the crash (according to another theory, Cecilia’s premature birth during the flight is the decisive factor in landing in Steene to have).

Transfer of the dead to Darmstadt and burial

The station square in Darmstadt before the 1st World War. The square was closed on November 19, 1937 for the funeral procession through Darmstadt to Rosenhöhe Park.

The coffins were brought to Darmstadt on Thursday night, November 18, in a special car attached to the scheduled train and accompanied by Ludwig and Margaret, Sir Auckland Geddes and Berthold von Baden , Cecilia’s brother-in-law. The train reached Darmstadt's main train station on November 19 at 4:10 a.m. and was expected by family members and friends, as well as the late Joachim Riedesel zu Eisenbach, Lina Hahn and Arthur Martens. This group included Cäcilie's mother Alice von Battenberg and sisters Margarita , Theodora and Sophie and Kuno Graf von Hardenberg . The coffins were laid out in the Fürstensaal of the train station, where a prayer was given by Pastor Helmut Monnard and a guard of honor by Georg Donatus' comrade from the Fliegersturm. The transfer of the coffins to the old mausoleum on Rosenhöhe took place on the same day from 3 p.m. with great sympathy from the population. The funeral parade through Darmstadt, like the one a few weeks earlier for Georg Donatus and Ludwig's father Ernst Ludwig , was taken over by the National Socialists. In addition to Ludwig and Berthold, Prince Philip of Greece , the brother of Cäcilie and later husband of the British Queen Elisabeth II , his brother-in-law Christoph von Hessen, the husband of , took part in the overpass - the coffins were pulled on five wagons by four horses each Sophie, and Lord Louis Mountbatten. On the Rosenhöhe there was a short celebration held by Provost Friedrich Müller, which was attended by Victoria von Battenberg , Irene von Prussia and August Wilhelm von Prussia .

The actual funeral took place on November 23 at 3 p.m. in the presence of members and representatives of the royal houses, the city of Darmstadt, the Wehrmacht , the NSDAP (Georg Donatus and his wife had joined the party in the year they died) and the Air Corps. The speech was given by a friend of the family, Geh. Church councilor D. Paul Klein (1871–1957) from Mannheim . Georg Donatus, Cäcilie, their sons Ludwig and Alexander as well as the former Grand Duchess Eleonore found their final resting place together with the not yet buried Ernst Ludwig in a large communal grave on the Rosenhöhe . Compared to earlier memorials erected in the park, the rather simple grave is surmounted by a large sandstone cross. In front of it are the small gravestones with the first names and dates of the deceased.

Accident investigation and result

The judicial investigation of the fifth most serious aircraft accident of the year in Europe at the time of the crash began on November 18, 1937. A three-person commission of experts was formed for this purpose. The investigation was the responsibility of the public prosecutor in Bruges , the examining magistrate was called Moeneclay. The crash was primarily attributed to human error - experienced pilot Antoine Lambotte would have underestimated the risk of landing in poor visibility in Steene. He also forgot that the high factory chimney that the plane crashed into was in the flight path. However, after the landing in Brussels was aborted, the crew had not received a radio message about the deteriorating weather conditions in Ostend, where visibility was 600 feet (approx. 183 meters). Shortly after the accident, an eyewitness to the crash, a pilot named Hanet, who also testified as part of the judicial investigation, objected to the flares used by airport staff to guide the crew of the Ju 52 to the runway. While the first rocket was ignited without any problems, a second went out and a third was ignited too late. Other eyewitnesses reported that the flares could not be seen because of the thick fog.

The Belgian airline Sabena stated that it had instructed the pilot to refrain from landing in Steene and to fly directly to London. At this point in time, however, the OO-AUB was already preparing to land. The Belgian politician Henri Jaspar criticized the location of the Steene airfield just one day after the accident. Jaspar emphasized the importance of moving the airport, which is six miles (approx. 10 km) from Ostend, to Middelkerke .

The volunteers who appeared at the scene of the accident were later suspected of theft by the police and local authorities. Cäcilie and Eleonore carried jewels with a value of more than 10,000 US dollars, which were found in the wreck, on their trip to London.

Ludwig accepted a severance payment of 250,000 Belgian francs (1750 British pounds ), in accordance with the Warsaw Convention on Carriage by International Air Transport .

aftermath

Moritz von Hessen in 2010

The one-year-old Johanna - the only surviving child of Georg Donatus and Cäcilie - who was left behind in Wolfsgarten Castle , moved with her carer to Theodora from Baden to Salem on Lake Constance after the plane crash . Theodora herself had three children of about the same age and, the year before, had the unfortunate children Ludwig and Alexander with her. Later the orphan Johanna was adopted by Ludwig and his wife Margaret. However, Johanna contracted meningitis in May 1939 and died on June 14, 1939 at the age of two. She is buried away from her family in Rosenhöhe Park.

Ludwig could never quite get over the accidental death of his family, which he described in a statement published on December 1, 1937 in the Darmstadt newspapers as an “incomprehensible stroke of fate” . Years later he expressed his grief in poems and letters and placed the event in a larger context: “It was as if a dark fate that was to affect our entire people had been practiced on a small scale in the private misfortune that went through the plane crash in Ostend came over us. ”In 1958, Ludwig's new action for damages was dismissed by a court in Brussels. Ludwig's marriage to Margaret remained childless, so that the Hessen-Darmstadt line died out with his death in 1968. As early as 1960, Ludwig had adopted Moritz von Hessen , son of the head of the Kassel line, Philipp von Hessen . With this heir to Margaret, who died in 1997, the Hesse-Kassel and Hesse-Darmstadt lines of the House of Hesse , which had been separate for centuries, reunited.

Today nothing reminds of the previous crash site. The Steene airfield was abandoned a few years later and a larger airport was built in the municipality of Middelkerke. The brick factory has not been preserved either. On the former site of the airfield, along today's Gistelsesteenweg , the A10 Brussels – Ostend motorway now extends with a large roundabout as well as single-family houses and the old town hall of Steene.

The plane crash was thematized in 2017 in the episode Paterfamilias of the British television series The Crown (season 2, episode 9), albeit historically inaccurate in details. As a result, Prince Philip (played by Matt Smith ) remembers his time at the Scottish private school Gordonstoun and the death of his older sister, Cäcilie ( Leonie Benesch ), who was afraid of flying .

literature

  • Ostend. Vliesuig bidst tegen schoorsteen. In: Christian Deglas, Hans van Riemsdijk et al .: Rampen in België. Lannoo, Tielt cop. 2005, ISBN 9-02096216-7 , pp. 38-40.
  • Manfred Knodt : Ernst Ludwig, Grand Duke of Hesse and the Rhine. His life and his time. Schlapp, Darmstadt 1978, ISBN 3-87704-006-3 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ History at sabena.com (English, accessed on 10 July 2011).
  2. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Deglas, Christian: Rampen in België . Lannoo, Tielt cop. 2005, ISBN 9789020962161 , pp. 38-40.
  3. ↑ a b c d e Knodt, Manfred: Ernst Ludwig, Grand Duke of Hesse and the Rhine: His life and his time . Schlapp, Darmstadt 1978, ISBN 3-87704-006-3 , p. 407.
  4. ↑ a b c d e f g h i 5 in Grand Ducal Family Die With 6 Others in Air Crash . In: The New York Times , November 17, 1937, p. 1.
  5. ↑ a b c d e f g h A Tragic Air Crash . In: The Times , Nov. 17, 1937, No. 47844, p. 16.
  6. ↑ Aircraft accident data and report in the Aviation Safety Network , accessed on July 17, 2011.
  7. ↑ a b c d e f g Prince Is Married After Air Tragedy . In: The New York Times , Nov. 18, 1937, p. 3.
  8. ↑ a b Knodt, Manfred: Ernst Ludwig, Grand Duke of Hesse and the Rhine: His life and his time . Schlapp, Darmstadt 1978, ISBN 3-87704-006-3 , p. 116.
  9. ↑ Miss Geddes, Prince Ludwig Are Betrothed . In: The Washington Post . July 18, 1937, p. 1.
  10. ↑ Knodt, Manfred: Ernst Ludwig, Grand Duke of Hesse and the Rhine: His life and his time . Schlapp, Darmstadt 1978, ISBN 3-87704-006-3 , p. 399.
  11. ^ Marriages . In: The Times , Oct 12, 1937, No. 47813, p. 17.
  12. ↑ a b c Knodt, Manfred: Ernst Ludwig, Grand Duke of Hesse and the Rhine: His life and his time . Schlapp, Darmstadt 1978, ISBN 3-87704-006-3 , p. 406.
  13. ↑ a b c d e f g The Ostend Air Disaster . In: The Times , Nov. 18, 1937, No. 47845, p. 14.
  14. ↑ AP : Air Crash Kills Five in Royal Hessian House . In: The Washington Post , Nov. 17, 1937, p. 3.
  15. ↑ a b c A gloomy day in Darmstadt's history . In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung , November 15, 2007, No. 266, p. 67.
  16. ↑ AP: Air Crash Kills Five in Royal Hessian House: Grand Duke George, His Princess, 2 Sons and Mother . In: The Washington Post , November 17, 1937, pp. 1/3.
  17. ^ AP: Five Members of the former Royal Family die in Air Crash . In: Los Angeles Times , November 17, 1937, p. 1.
  18. ^ Marriages . In: The Times , Nov. 18, 1937, No. 47845, p. 17.
  19. ^ Nobility Starts Sad Honeymoon . In: Los Angeles Times , Nov. 18, 1937, p. 3.
  20. ↑ AP: Royal Baby Born To Grand Duchess In Air Crash Died . In: The Washington Post , Nov. 18, 1937, p. 12.
  21. ^ Nobility Starts Sad Honeymoon: Duke and Bride Leave for Ostend to Identify Air Crash Victims . In: Los Angeles Times , Nov. 18, 1937, p. 3.
  22. ^ AP: Birth of Royal Infant seen as Cause of Crash . In: The Evening Independent , November 23, 1937, p. 8.
  23. ↑ Knodt, Manfred: Ernst Ludwig, Grand Duke of Hesse and the Rhine: His life and his time . Schlapp, Darmstadt 1978, ISBN 3-87704-006-3 , pp. 407-408.
  24. ^ Petropoulos, Jonathan: Royals and the Reich: The Princes von Hessen in Nazi Germany . Oxford Univ. Press, Oxford / New York 2006, ISBN 0-19-516133-5 , p. 382.
  25. ↑ Knodt, Manfred: Ernst Ludwig, Grand Duke of Hesse and the Rhine: His life and his time . Schlapp, Darmstadt 1978, ISBN 3-87704-006-3 , p. 408.
  26. ^ A b Prince’s Claim For Damages Fails 1937 Air Crash Recalled . In: The Times , May 31, 1958, No. 54165, p. 5.
  27. ↑ Knodt, Manfred: Ernst Ludwig, Grand Duke of Hesse and the Rhine: His life and his time . Schlapp, Darmstadt 1978, ISBN 3-87704-006-3 , pp. 408-410.
  28. ↑ Knodt, Manfred: Ernst Ludwig, Grand Duke of Hesse and the Rhine: His life and his time . Schlapp, Darmstadt 1978, ISBN 3-87704-006-3 , p. 410.
  29. ↑ Knodt, Manfred: The regents of Hessen-Darmstadt . Schlapp, Darmstadt 1977, ISBN 3-87704-004-7 , p. 160.
  30. ^ House of Hesse . In: Hueck Walter from: Genealogical manual of the princely houses . Limburg, L.: Strong. Vol. XIV, 1991, p. 51.
  31. ↑ Ludwig Prince of Hesse . In: Internationales Biographisches Archiv 32/1968 of July 29, 1968 (accessed on July 16, 2011 via Munzinger Online ).