Lufthansa Flight 005
Convair CV 440 · Stall during go-around
From Frankfurt Main Airport (FRA) to Hamburg Helmut Schmidt Airport (HAM)
Event
- 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
- Accident
- Event fatalities
- 46 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- Unknown
- Occupants
- 46
- Survivors
- 0
- InjuriesFatal: death within 30 days. Serious: over 48 hours in hospital within a week, most broken bones, severe bleeding, nerve or organ damage, or serious burns. Minor: anything less. Glossary
- 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
Convair CV 440
- Flight
- LH005
- Aircraft type
- Convair CV-440
- 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-ACAT
- Operator
- Lufthansa
- Onboard fatalities
- 46
- Route
- From Frankfurt Main Airport (FRA)To Hamburg Helmut Schmidt Airport (HAM)
Cause areas
- Aircraft › Aircraft systems
- Personnel issues › Psychological
- Personnel issues › Task performance
- Aircraft › Aircraft oper/perf/capability
From the investigation findings the Wikipedia article reports, sorted into the NTSB's cause areas with AI assistance.
Approximate · Coordinates from the Wikipedia article; not checked against an investigation report.
From the Wikipedia article
Lufthansa Flight 005 was a scheduled flight en route from Frankfurt to Hamburg with a stopover in Bremen. The aircraft crashed just beyond the runway in Bremen just before 19:00 on 28 January 1966, in a go-around after an aborted landing. All occupants — 42 passengers and 4 crew members — died in the accident.
Sequence of events
The flight departed Frankfurt Airport on runway 25R at 5:41 PM after a slight delay of 8 minutes. The aircraft's weight at takeoff was 22148 kg, only slightly under the maximum of 22544 kg. The Convair CV-440 was fueled with 3200 L of aviation gasoline, sufficient for a flight of 5 hours, 13 minutes. This extra reserve was necessary because the crew had chosen Stuttgart Airport as their alternate destination due to poor weather conditions.
At about 18:40, after about 30 minutes cruising at Flight Level 140 (14000 ft), the flight began its approach from the east to runway 27 at the Bremen Airport. The temperature was 4 degrees Celsius and the ceiling was less than 100 m. The visibility was only approximately 700 m because of heavy rains. Wind speed was 9 knots from 140 degrees. The resulting tailwind affecting the aircraft was 6 knots. The minimum weather conditions at the Bremen Airport for that Convair 440 aircraft type permitted a tailwind of no more than 5 knots.
Capitan Heinz Saalfeld began his final descent, but commenced a go-around maneuver at an approximate height of 10 m above the ground. A few moments later, at 6:51 pm, the 21.5-ton aircraft spun to the left and crashed into a field 400 m beyond the end of the runway. The remaining fuel (approximately 2500 L) ignited, causing a ground fire that was extinguished by the airport's Fire and Rescue only after 40 minutes.
At the time, the accident was the fourth total loss of a Lufthansa aircraft since the company's reestablishment in 1954: after the crash of a Lockheed Super Constellation on 11 January 1959 during approach at Rio de Janeiro–Galeão International Airport, the airline had also lost two Boeing 720-030B during training flights over West Germany in 1961 and 1964.
Investigation and cause
Causes
After the accident, an investigative commission was formed. The commission released its final report about a year later, concluding that the crash was caused by a chain of technical and human errors.
According to the report, an instrument in the cockpit displayed false information, causing the aircraft to deviate from the prescribed flight path specified by the instrument landing system, flying above its glide path. As the aircraft broke free of the cloud cover and switched from instrument controlled flight to visual control, the captain presumably estimated the altitude incorrectly due to darkness and poor visibility, causing the aircraft to come in too far, which made the final approach too late. The captain decided to abort because the little remaining runway would not have been sufficient to allow for braking the aircraft. At this point, he maneuvered the Convair into an extreme flight attitude, leading to a stall and the aircraft striking the ground with its left wing first. The aircraft burned completely except for the tail section and the right wing. When the rescue team arrived they could only sort through the wreckage.
According to an article in the German magazine Der Spiegel, the aircraft was considerably iced over and the pilot's visibility almost impossible. According to the accident report, it could not be ruled out that during the critical landing phase the pilot suffered from a cardiovascular disorder, precluding him from being able to control the aircraft any longer. He could not control the further progress of the flight on account of the rather poor stall performance of the aircraft type, the extraordinary difficulties to control a stall during instrument flight conditions, and the insufficient height available for transition from a stall to a normal attitude after the aircraft. The copilot could not level off the aircraft because of the very low altitude. The report ended with the sentence, "Other causes could also have contributed to the accident."
A pathological examination of the pilot's remains was not possible. An examination of the copilot's body, however, revealed a blood alcohol content of 0.24 per mil.
Text from the Wikipedia article “Lufthansa Flight 005” (revision 1339306266, retrieved 2026-09-18) by its authors, under CC BY-SA 4.0. Extracted as plain text: references, tables, images and some sections are left out. Read the article
Sources
Wikipedia article: Lufthansa Flight 005
- Article
- Lufthansa Flight 005
- Revision
- 1339306266 · 2026-02-19 · retrieved 2026-09-18
- Wikidata
- Q320879
- Licence
- Text CC BY-SA 4.0, by the article's authors; Wikidata CC0; town positions GeoNames (CC BY 4.0)
Where each value comes from
- Record
- Wikipedia article "Lufthansa Flight 005" (page 19011491, revision 1339306266)
- Date
- Wikipedia infobox: date
- Place and country
- Wikipedia infobox: site; country from Wikidata (P17)
- Map position
- Wikipedia article coordinates
- Aircraft, operator and route
- Wikipedia infobox: aircraft type, registration, operator, origin and destination; route airports from the linked airport articles' Wikidata codes (OurAirports)
- Operation
- airline flight number in the infobox
- Fatalities
- Wikipedia infobox: aircraft fatalities
- Ground fatalities
- not stated in the Wikipedia infobox
- Summary
- Wikipedia infobox: summary
Source notes (1)
- Wikipedia · Facts from the Wikipedia article's infobox and coordinates, not checked against an investigation report. Independent review pending.