Helicopter crash in Mannheim in 1982
| Helicopter crash in Mannheim in 1982 | |
|---|---|
 A Chinook similar to the casualty |
|
| Accident summary | |
| Accident type | Crash after losing the rotor blades |
| place | Federal motorway 656 at the Mannheim-Neckarau junction |
| date | September 11, 1982 |
| Fatalities | 46 |
| Survivors | 0 |
| Aircraft | |
| Aircraft type | CH-47C Chinook |
| operator | US Army |
| Mark | 74-22292 |
| Departure airport | Mannheim Airport |
| Destination airport | Mannheim Airport |
| Passengers | 41 |
| crew | 5 |
| Lists of aviation accidents | |
46 people died in a helicopter crash in Mannheim on September 11, 1982. The CH-47C Chinook crashed in the area of the Mannheim-Neckarau junction on the 656 federal motorway ( Mannheim - Heidelberg ).
procedure
On the occasion of the 375th anniversary of the granting of city rights to Mannheim, the "International Airship Days" were to take place at the Mannheim airfield in Mannheim-Neuostheim . Parachutists from Mannheim and the twin cities of Toulon and Swansea wanted to set a record in formation jumping . Before that, a practice jump from around 3500 meters should be completed in front of thousands of spectators. At 12:30 p.m. the transport helicopter of the US garrison Mannheim took off with its passengers. While ascending, the pilot reported problems at an altitude of about 3000 meters and announced his return.
The pilot went into descent, but at a height of around 250 meters, almost on the approach to landing, the transfer case, which has the task of synchronizing the running of the two counter-rotating rotors, whose propeller circles mesh around six meters, failed. The three rotor blades of the front and rear rotor collided and splintered, the helicopter, now without lift, crashed onto the A 656 in front of the audience and burned out. All inmates died: 23 French, nine British, six Germans and eight Americans, including the five-man crew and two AFN reporters.
Reactions
Lord Mayor Wilhelm Varnholt then canceled all further anniversary celebrations. The US Army banned all 409 Chinook helicopters worldwide. The wreckage was flown to a military depot in Corpus Christi, Texas . The investigation found that particles of a cleaning agent from crushed walnut shells had clogged the lubricating nozzles, which led to the transfer case overheating. As a result, the synchronization of the nine-meter-long rotor blades was no longer guaranteed and they could hit each other. The relatives of nine victims sued the manufacturer Boeing Vertol . A district court convicted the company of a design flaw. But in the appeal, Boeing Vertol was able to prove that the proposal for a design change that could have prevented the accident had been rejected by the army.
A year after the accident, a memorial by the British sculptor Michael Sandle was inaugurated in front of the entrance to the Mannheim airfield - today Mannheim City airfield . There is also a memorial on the beach at Toulon - plage du Mourillon - with the names and origins of all the deceased, on which the dead are still regularly commemorated.
literature
- Clogged nozzles . In: Der Spiegel . No. 44 , 1982, pp. 261 ( online ).
- Rolf Nobel, Rudolf Müller: "A scandal that screams to heaven" , Stern 1986, pp. 110–114
- Wilhelm Dietl, Catherine Mayer, Detlef Sieverdingbeck, Thomas van Zütphen: Lobby for the Victims , Focus January 4, 1999
- Thorsten Langscheid: Commemoration of Mannheim's September 11th , Mannheimer Morgen September 12th, 2012, p. 20
Individual evidence
Web links
Coordinates: 49 ° 28 ′ 5.4 " N , 8 ° 30 ′ 58" E