The 1972 Königs Wusterhausen air disaster occurred on 14 August when an

Interflug Interflug GmbH (german: Interflug Gesellschaft für internationalen Flugverkehr m.b.H.; ) was the national airline of the German Democratic Republic from 1963 to 1990. Based in East Berlin, it operated scheduled and chartered flights to European ...

Ilyushin Il-62 crashed shortly after take-off from Berlin-Schönefeld Airport in

Schönefeld Schönefeld (meaning ''beautiful field'') is a suburban municipality in the Dahme-Spreewald district, Brandenburg, Germany. It borders the southeastern districts of Berlin. The municipal area encompasses the old Berlin Schönefeld Airport (SXF) a ...

East Germany East Germany, officially the German Democratic Republic (GDR; german: Deutsche Demokratische Republik, , DDR, ), was a country that existed from its creation on 7 October 1949 until its dissolution on 3 October 1990. In these years the state ...

, on a holiday charter flight to

Burgas Burgas ( bg, Бургас, ), sometimes transliterated as ''Bourgas'', is the second largest city on the Bulgarian Black Sea Coast in the region of Northern Thrace and the fourth-largest in Bulgaria after Sofia, Plovdiv, and Varna, with a popu ...

Bulgaria Bulgaria (; bg, България, Bǎlgariya), officially the Republic of Bulgaria,, ) is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the eastern flank of the Balkans, and is bordered by Romania to the north, Serbia and North Macedon ...

. The accident was caused by a fire in the aft cargo bay. All 156 passengers and crew died. To date, it is the deadliest aviation accident in Germany.

Aircraft and crew

The aircraft was a

Soviet The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...

-built Ilyushin IL-62 aircraft, registered DM-SEA, powered by four

Kuznetsov NK-8 The NK-8 was a low-bypass turbofan engine built by the Kuznetsov Design Bureau, in the thrust class. It powered production models of the Ilyushin Il-62 and the Tupolev Tu-154A and B models. Variants ;NK-8-2: (Tupolev Tu-154) ;NK-8-2U: (Tupol ...

engines. It first flew in April 1970, and up until the accident had acquired 3,520 flight-time hours. The

aircrew Aircrew, also called flight crew, are personnel who operate an aircraft while in flight. The composition of a flight's crew depends on the type of aircraft, plus the flight's duration and purpose. Commercial aviation Flight deck positions ...

consisted of 51-year-old

captain Captain is a title, an appellative for the commanding officer of a military unit; the supreme leader of a navy ship, merchant ship, aeroplane, spacecraft, or other vessel; or the commander of a port, fire or police department, election precinct, e ...

Heinz Pfaff, 35-year-old first officer Lothar Walther, 32-year-old

flight engineer A flight engineer (FE), also sometimes called an air engineer, is the member of an aircraft's flight crew who monitors and operates its complex aircraft systems. In the early era of aviation, the position was sometimes referred to as the "air me ...

Ingolf Stein, and 38-year-old

navigator A navigator is the person on board a ship or aircraft responsible for its navigation.Grierson, MikeAviation History—Demise of the Flight Navigator FrancoFlyers.org website, October 14, 2008. Retrieved August 31, 2014. The navigator's primar ...

Achim Flilenius. The flight crew members had 8,100, 6,041, 2,258, and 8,570 hours of experience, respectively.

Crash

The Interflug flight left Berlin-Schönefeld Airport at 16:30 local time. Because of the summer holiday, the number of passengers – mainly tourists bound for the

Bulgarian Black Sea Coast The Bulgarian Black Sea Coast (), also known as the Bulgarian Riviera, covers the entire eastern bound of Bulgaria stretching from the Romanian Black Sea resorts in the north to European Turkey in the south, along 378 km of coast ...

– almost reached the full capacity of the airliner.

Takeoff Takeoff is the phase of flight in which an aerospace vehicle leaves the ground and becomes airborne. For aircraft traveling vertically, this is known as liftoff. For aircraft that take off horizontally, this usually involves starting with a t ...

proceeded normally, and the aircraft then headed southeast towards

Czechoslovakia , rue, Чеськословеньско, , yi, טשעכאסלאוואקיי, , common_name = Czechoslovakia , life_span = 1918–19391945–1992 , p1 = Austria-Hungary , image_p1 ...

, now the

Czech Republic The Czech Republic, or simply Czechia, is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Historically known as Bohemia, it is bordered by Austria to the south, Germany to the west, Poland to the northeast, and Slovakia to the southeast. The ...

. At 16:43, thirteen minutes into the flight and above the city of

Cottbus Cottbus (; Lower Sorbian: ''Chóśebuz'' ; Polish: Chociebuż) is a university city and the second-largest city in Brandenburg, Germany. Situated around southeast of Berlin, on the River Spree, Cottbus is also a major railway junction with exten ...

, East Germany, the crew reported problems with the

elevator An elevator or lift is a wire rope, cable-assisted, hydraulic cylinder-assisted, or roller-track assisted machine that vertically transports people or freight between floors, levels, or deck (building), decks of a building, watercraft, ...

; the aircraft was by this time approximately 10 degrees off its designated route. The flight requested a return to Schönefeld but did not think the situation critical enough for an immediate landing at the nearest airport. At 16:51, the crew carried out a

fuel dump Fuel dumping (or a fuel jettison) is a procedure used by aircraft in certain emergency situations before a return to the airport shortly after takeoff, or before landing short of the intended destination (emergency landing) to reduce the aircra ...

to decrease landing weight. Meanwhile,

flight attendant A flight attendant, also known as steward/stewardess or air host/air hostess, is a member of the aircrew aboard commercial flights, many business jets and some government aircraft. Collectively called cabin crew, flight attendants are prima ...

s reported smoke in the rear section of the cabin. With Berlin-Schönefeld Airport already in sight a few kilometres south, the flight issued a

mayday Mayday is an emergency procedure word used internationally as a distress signal in voice-procedure radio communications. It is used to signal a life-threatening emergency primarily by aviators and mariners, but in some countries local organiza ...

at 16:59:25, indicating problems controlling the aircraft's altitude. At this time, the flight crew was likely unaware that the fire had been consuming portions of the rear of the aircraft. A few seconds later, the tail section, weakened by the fire, separated from the aircraft, causing it to enter an uncontrolled descent. Due to the forces of the dive, the rest of the aircraft broke up in mid-air, the debris landing in the town of

Königs Wusterhausen Königs Wusterhausen () is a town in the Dahme-Spreewald district of the state of Brandenburg in Germany a few kilometers outside Berlin. Geography Geographical location Königs Wusterhausen – or "KW" () as it is often called locally – lie ...

, East Germany.

Cause

The pilot's last messages suggested that a fire in the rear of the aircraft was responsible for the accident. This part of the aircraft was not accessible from the cabin and had no

smoke detector A smoke detector is a device that senses smoke, typically as an indicator of fire. Smoke detectors are usually housed in plastic enclosures, typically shaped like a disk about in diameter and thick, but shape and size vary. Smoke can be detecte ...

s, so the crew was unable to immediately grasp the severity of the situation. The fire was caused by a hot-air tube leak, through which air heated to some escaped, damaging the insulation of electrical wires and the

aircraft flight control system A conventional Fixed-wing aircraft, fixed-wing aircraft flight control system consists of flight control surfaces, the respective cockpit controls, connecting linkages, and the necessary operating mechanisms to control an aircraft's direction ...

. After takeoff, the resulting

short circuit A short circuit (sometimes abbreviated to short or s/c) is an electrical circuit that allows a current to travel along an unintended path with no or very low electrical impedance. This results in an excessive current flowing through the circuit ...

caused sparks, lighting a fire in Cargo Bay 4. The fire then spread until smoke reached the passenger cabin and the

fuselage The fuselage (; from the French ''fuselé'' "spindle-shaped") is an aircraft's main body section. It holds crew, passengers, or cargo. In single-engine aircraft, it will usually contain an engine as well, although in some amphibious aircraft t ...

was weakened. Ultimately, the tail section failed in flight.

Memorial

At the

Wildau Wildau () is a German town of the state of Brandenburg, located in the district of Dahme-Spreewald. It is located close to Berlin and easily reached by the ''S-Bahn''. As of 2019 its population was 10,404 inhabitants. History The history of Wilda ...

Cemetery, close to Königs Wusterhausen, a memorial commemorates the victims whose names are written on a black stone marker.

References

External links