1935 Bushehr KLM Douglas DC-2 crash
Douglas DC-2 · On 17 July 1935, the day after it had made an emergency landing, the KLM Douglas DC-2 aircraft, crashed during takeoff from Bushire in Iran
From Batavia, Dutch East Indies to Amsterdam, Netherlands
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
- 0 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- Unknown
- Occupants
- 12
- Survivors
- 12
- 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
- 0
- 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
Douglas DC-2
- Aircraft type
- Douglas DC-2
- 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
- PH-AKM
- Operator
- KLM
- Onboard fatalities
- 0
- Route
- From Batavia, Dutch East IndiesTo Amsterdam, Netherlands
Approximate · Estimated position: Bushehr, the place the Wikipedia article names. Not the accident site.
From the Wikipedia article
On 17 July 1935, the day after it had made an emergency landing, the KLM Douglas DC-2 aircraft, crashed during takeoff from Bushire in Iran. All passengers and crew survived without injury. The aircraft, registration PH-AKM, had been flying from Batavia, Dutch East Indies (now Jakarta in Indonesia), with a final scheduled destination of Schiphol, Amsterdam, in the Netherlands. The accident was one of three major international passenger flight accidents of KLM that week and became known as the "black week". This left KLM short of crew and airplanes.
Flight and accident
The Douglas DC-2 PH-AKM (named: "Maraboe") operated by KLM departed on Saturday 13 July 1935 from Batavia, Dutch East Indies, via several stopovers including Medang, Rangoon, Jodhpur and Bagdad to Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Due to bad weather the airplane made an emergency landing in Bushire, Iran, in the evening of 16 July 1935. In the early morning of 17 July 1935 (12.30 u. GMT) the airplane departed to continue its journey to the next intermediate stop in Baghdad, Iraq. The runway of Bushire was not good, described as a very bumpy grass field and was the worst runway on the route from the Dutch East Indies to the Netherlands. The airplane took off in darkness. The track was illuminated with stable lanterns. After around 300 meters with a speed of around 120 km/h the airplane bumped into a hole and jumped as a result of that around three meters into the air. According to an eye witness the plane had enough speed to stay in the air. However, the plane flipped hard back onto the runway. The impact caused the right landing gear to retract and damaged parts of the wing, including fuel lines. The airplane was leaning slightly to the right and came to a stop. Due to the fuel that poured out, or due to back-fire of a sudden stop of the engine the plane caught fire. The passengers and crew were able to leave the aircraft unharmed. The pilot didn’t turn off the engines and didn’t close the fuel tap. Besides of that the Lux fire extinguishing system was not used. The rear part of the aircraft burned down completely and most of the luggage and mail bags were lost.
Investigation and cause
Investigation
The investigation was carried out by the Dutch Government Study Service for Aviation (Rijksstudiedienst voor de Luchtvaart) and led by van der Maas (Rijks-Studiedienst voor de Luchtvaart) and van der Heijden (Rijksluchtvaartdienst).
Immediately after arrival at Schiphol, all crew member were officially questioned by van der Heijden and van der Maas. Afterwards the crew reported to KLM director Albert Plesman, deputy director Guillonard and flight chief Aler.
Some statements of the crew members differed from each other, especially the estimated speed varies of the airplane at the time of the jump. The question remains whether the aircraft already had sufficient speed and could therefore have remained in the air or not.
Text from the Wikipedia article “1935 Bushehr KLM Douglas DC-2 crash” (revision 1373909961, 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: 1935 Bushehr KLM Douglas DC-2 crash
- Revision
- 1373909961 · 2026-09-08 · retrieved 2026-09-18
- Wikidata
- Q123144304
- 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 "1935 Bushehr KLM Douglas DC-2 crash" (page 74944871, revision 1373909961)
- Date
- Wikipedia infobox: date
- Place and country
- Wikipedia infobox: site
- Map position
- place the Wikipedia infobox site links (Wikidata 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 is an airline according to Wikidata
- Fatalities
- Wikipedia infobox: aircraft fatalities
- Ground fatalities
- not stated in the Wikipedia infobox
- Summary
- Wikipedia article lead
Source notes (1)
- Wikipedia · Facts from the Wikipedia article's infobox and coordinates, not checked against an investigation report. Independent review pending.