Nürnberger Flugdienst Flight 108

On the morning of 8 February 1988, Nürnberger Flugdienst Flight 108, a scheduled regional passenger flight from Hannover Airport to Düsseldorf Airport, crashed near Essen, West Germany, with the loss of all 19 passengers and two crew members on board. Shortly before sunrise, the Swearingen SA-227AC Metroliner III operating the flight lost all electrical power after a lightning strike while flying through a cumulonimbus cloud on approach to the airport. Spatially disoriented, the pilots did not realize the aircraft was descending towards the ground until they got below the cloud cover. Witnesses described the aircraft flying in and out of the clouds until it suffered a structural overload and broke apart over the Ruhr River. It is the deadliest aviation accident involving the Swearingen Fairchild Metroliner.

Accident

At 06:30, the aircraft was refueled and de-iced. At 07:15, Flight 108 took off from Hannover Airport with 19 passengers and two pilots on board, 15 minutes behind schedule. Captain Borsdorf was the pilot in command, while First Officer Heilmann was the pilot monitoring. For the next 24 minutes, the plane climbed to a cruising altitude of 14000 ft without any problems.

In the air, the crew discussed the weather conditions surrounding Düsseldorf Airport. They acknowledged the presence of thunderstorms in the area but believed that the situation wasn't as severe as it seemed. The pilots then tuned in to the Automatic Terminal Information Service, which broadcast that the winds were gusting from 12 knots to 24 knots from a heading of 240°, before initiating their descent at 07:39. After establishing contact with the Dusseldorf director, the flight was cleared to descend to 3,000 ft at 7:47. Two minutes later, the crew of Flight 108 listened as the aircraft ahead of them is told that a preceding aircraft had suffered a lightning strike on approach, but did not perform a go-around as the pilots said it was unnecessary. The director cleared Flight 108 for an ILS approach to runway 24, after which he added "Flamingo 108, the same information for you, the preceding landing experienced a lightning strike on about six miles final." The crew acknowledged this and reported that they are "looking outside."

As they reached the localizer, the crew saw on their weather radar that a thunderstorm was coming in right in front of them. Just before Flight 108 entered the thunderstorm, Heilmann exclaimed, "Now hold on tight, here it comes!" Inside the thunderstorm, the first officer noticed that the aircraft was to the left of the approach centerline, and advised Borsdorf to correct their course. The crew then begun configuring their plane in preparation for landing.

The director then instructed Flight 108 to switch over to the tower controller. Heilmann acknowledged this and switched over to the tower frequency. A few seconds later, the Metroliner was struck by lightning, causing the aircraft's entire electrical system to fail, including the Cockpit Voice Recorder (CVR) and the Flight Data Recorder (FDR).

At 07:56, witnesses on the ground reported seeing the aircraft descending from the cloud cover in a steep bank before leveling off and then climbing back into the thunderstorm. A minute later, the aircraft dived out again before climbing back up. Flight 108 then emerged for a third time. However, when they attempted to climb back up, they exceeded the Metroliner's structural limits and it broke apart midair. The right wing separated from the fuselage and pivoted left, causing the right engine's propellers to slice through the forward fuselage, splitting Flight 108 in half. The aircraft then entered an uncontrolled spiral and broke apart further before hitting the ground in several pieces.