2013 Berlin helicopter crash
German Federal Police Eurocopter EC155 and German Federal Police Eurocopter AS332 Super Puma · Ground collision on landing in whiteout conditions
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
- 1 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- Unknown
- Occupants
- 25
- Survivors
- 24
- 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
- 9 · 5 on the ground
- 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
- Government
Aircraft 1 · Eurocopter EC155
- Aircraft type
- Eurocopter EC155
- Category
- Helicopter · 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-HLTM
- Operator
- German Federal Police
- Onboard fatalities
- 1
- Occupants
- 10
- Survivors
- 9
- 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
- 3
- Route
- From not recordedTo not recorded
Aircraft 2 · Eurocopter AS332 Super Puma
- Aircraft type
- Eurocopter AS332
- Category
- Helicopter · 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-HEGB
- Operator
- German Federal Police
- Onboard fatalities
- 0
- Occupants
- 15
- Survivors
- 15
- 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
- 1
- Route
- From not recordedTo not recorded
Cause areas
- Organizational issues › Development
- Personnel issues › Task performance
- Personnel issues › Miscellaneous
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
On 21 March 2013, two helicopters of the German Federal Police collided while landing in front of Berlin Olympic Stadium, Germany, in whiteout conditions. One crew member was killed and nine other people, both on board the helicopters and on the ground, were injured.
Background
During a large police exercise against football hooliganism on 21 March 2013 at the Olympic Stadium of Berlin, three helicopters of the federal German police force were scheduled to land on the Maifeld sports field in front of the stadium. Their task was the delivery of reinforcements for police at the nearby railway station. The flight comprised two Eurocopter AS332 Super Pumas and one Eurocopter EC 155.
Accident
The final investigation report describes the event as follows: The first aircraft, an EC 155, landed successfully around 10:28 CET but raised large amounts of snow from the ground. This helicopter carried the pilot, an engineer, seven police officers, and one journalist. It was followed by the Super Puma, which approached the landing zone at a steep angle and hovered back and forth above the ground for about 30 seconds, raising ever more snow that fully engulfed the first helicopter. During this manoeuvre, the third helicopter, also a Super Puma, approached the landing zone, carrying the pilot, an engineer, and 13 officers. This third aircraft also raised a large cloud of snow from the ground while landing, causing the pilot to lose sight of the marshalling officer on the ground. The third helicopter then touched the ground which caused the aircraft to roll over. Thereby its main rotor and tail section collided with the EC155's main rotor. The pilot of the EC155 was killed by a piece of rotor blade. Apart from a landing report made by helicopter number one and a brief report on changing positions during the landing approach of aircraft number two and three, no radio communication took place between the three aircraft during the entire landing phase.
Helicopter No. 1 (EC 155) was equipped with a cockpit voice recorder and a flight data recorder. The crashed Super Puma was equipped with a cockpit voice recorder but did not carry a flight data recorder since that was not a legal requirement when the type was first certified in 1989. Voice recorder data did not indicate any warnings about potential technical problems during the landing approach.
Investigation and cause
Investigation
The German Federal Bureau of Aircraft Accidents Investigation and federal attorneys investigated the accident, and a special homicide commission was routinely established at the Berlin State Office of Criminal Investigation. In the night of 22 March, the wrecked aircraft were hauled to a police facility in Ruhleben, Berlin. A post-mortem examination of the dead pilot concluded that he had obviously been killed by extraneous causes resulting from the crash. Following these findings, the special homicide commission was dissolved.
A first report by the Federal Bureau of Aircraft Accidents Investigation was published in May 2013. It listed the known facts of the accident without identifying a cause. The cause of the accident was still unclear As of September 2013.
Final report and criticism
The final investigation report was published in September 2014. The investigators stated that all pilots had ample flying experience including landings in snow, dust and sand. The pilot of helicopter No. 2 had also been flying search-and-rescue missions in mountainous areas so he was familiar with landing on unprepared snowy ground.
According to the investigation, a number of circumstances led to the fatal crash: the federal police aviation did not have any distinctive procedure for landings on snowy ground, the distances between the three individual aircraft during the landing phase had been too small, and communication between the personnel involved in the landing operation had been too scarce. The final investigation report also criticised that while the German federal police helicopter squadron was the nation's biggest non-military helicopter operator, it was not bound to the legal framework of similar civilian aviation companies. Notably European Union directive No. 216/2008 was criticised for exempting police aviation from such legal control. Also safety recommendations for police helicopter aviation issued by the Federal Bureau of Aircraft Accidents Investigation to the federal ministry of transport in 2006 had not been legally implemented.
The president of the German federal police rejected the report and claimed that own investigations had shown different results. The distance between the aircraft had been sufficient, and the communication had been reduced to a minimum according to the planned mission. Police pilots unofficially criticised the chief investigator who is a military pilot and had allegedly used inapplicable standards for the investigation. A motion to disqualify the investigator was however rejected.
Text from the Wikipedia article “2013 Berlin helicopter crash” (revision 1349715647, 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: 2013 Berlin helicopter crash
- Article
- 2013 Berlin helicopter crash
- Revision
- 1349715647 · 2026-04-18 · retrieved 2026-09-18
- Wikidata
- Q8010114
- 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 "2013 Berlin helicopter crash" (page 38889212, revision 1349715647)
- Date
- Wikipedia infobox: date
- Place and country
- Wikipedia infobox: site
- 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
- operator named as a government agency in the infobox
- Fatalities
- Wikipedia infobox: total_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.