Deutsche Lufthansa Boeing 737 530 incident
Boeing 737 530 · Incident
Event
- NTSB case
- DCA13WA068
- Event typeAccident: someone killed or seriously injured, or the aircraft substantially damaged (NTSB definition). Incident: an occurrence that affected or could have affected safety, short of that. Glossary
- Incident
- InvestigationHow far the investigation had got when the record was published: preliminary, ongoing, final or completed. Unknown where the source does not say. Glossary
- Unknown · led by another country; figures from NTSB notifications
- API-reported fatalities
- 0 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- Unknown
- OperationWhat kind of flying it was, grouped by the rules it flew under: airline (US Part 121), air taxi and commuter (Part 135), general aviation (Part 91 and similar), military or government. Glossary
- Airline
- WeatherVisual meteorological conditions (VMC): good enough to fly by looking outside. Instrument conditions (IMC): cloud or low visibility, flying by instruments. Glossary
- Not recorded
Boeing 737 530
- Aircraft type
- Boeing 737
- Category
- Airplane · from aircraft type
- RegistrationThe aircraft's tail number, such as N12345 or G-ABCD. Registrations are reissued, so the same one years apart can be a different aircraft. Glossary
- D-ABIL
- Operator
- Deutsche Lufthansa
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo not recorded
- Aircraft age
- Not recorded
- Flight rulesThe regulations the flight operated under: in the US, Part 91 (general aviation), Part 121 (airlines), Part 135 (air taxi and commuter) and others; for flights abroad, the NTSB's coarser commercial or non-commercial code. Glossary
- Part 129: Foreign
- Phase of flightThe stage of the flight when things started to go wrong: standing, taxi, takeoff, initial climb, en route, maneuvering, approach or landing. Glossary
- Not recorded
- Defining eventThe single coded event the NTSB judges best describes what happened (records from 2008 on). Older records name the first occurrence in the sequence instead. Glossary
- Not recorded
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- None
Cause areas
No findings designated as a cause are recorded in the NTSB data yet.
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Graz, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
On 2 March 2013, at approximately 0849 UTC time, a Boeing 737-530, registration D-ABIL, operated by by Lufthansa, was operating between Franfurt, Germany and Graz, Austria. The crew reported that just after takeoff from Frankfurt, and again about 5 minutes before landing in GRZ, a smell of "old socks" could be observed in the cockpit and the front galley - each time for approximately 3 minutes. The Captain and 1st Officer used oxygen masks while the smell was present. The flight landed normally and there were no injuries.
The incident is being investigated by the Sicherheitsuntersuchungsstelle – Zivilluftfahrt (Civil Aviation Safety Investigation Authority) of Austria. The NTSB has appointed an Accredited Representative to assist the investigation under the provisions of ICAO Annex 13 as the State of Design and Manufacture of the aircraft. All inquiries should be directed to the Austrian Accident Investigation Branch at:
BMVIT - IV/BAV/UUB/LF (Unfalluntersuchungsstelle - Luftfahrt) Federal Office of Transport Accident Investigation Branch, Department Aviation Address - Mail: P.O. Box 206, 1000 Wien Address - Office: Trauzlgasse 1, 1210 Wien Email : FUS@bmvit.gv.at Tel.: +43 (0)1 71162-657700 (24 hours)
Verbatim NTSB factual narrative from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DCA13WA068
- Event ID
- 20130314X64421
- Case number
- DCA13WA068
- Dataset
- full-current
- Source SHA-256
- 5cf380f0061817c0331a6b2d8cc7e0ee3a79bea469a1001dc5c10e56f35f5ab3
Source notes (4)
- Unreviewed is an editorial label, not an investigation status. API-sourced is not report-checked or human-reviewed. Explicit event totals are used without summing aircraft injury tables; onboard allocation is withheld. Unknown values remain unknown. The operation category is mapped from the NTSB-reported FAR part and has not been reviewed.
- Filled from the NTSB case API where the bulk record had no value: damage. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the UTC date the NTSB stores; the local time zone is not recorded, so the local date may differ by a day.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 1251af486e14366fd627325fe17019694c6089876aabc7935a862304b04308e5; retrieved 2026-09-15T21:06:07.555Z.