2014 Trier air accident
Theo Steil Cessna Citation I · CFIT (Controlled flight into terrain)
From Brighton City Airport (ESH) to Trier-Föhren Airfield (EDRT)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN14WA216
- 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
- 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
- Event fatalities
- 4 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- Unknown
- Occupants
- Unknown
- 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
- 0 serious · 0 minor (NTSB)
- 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
- Unknown
- WeatherVisual meteorological conditions (VMC): good enough to fly by looking outside. Instrument conditions (IMC): cloud or low visibility, flying by instruments. Glossary
- Not recorded
Cessna Citation I
- Aircraft type
- Cessna CITATION
- Category
- Airplane
- 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
- N452TS
- Operator
- Theo Steil
- Onboard fatalities
- 4
- Route
- From Brighton City Airport (ESH)To Trier-Föhren Airfield (EDRT)
- 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
- Non-U.S., Non-Commercial
- 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
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
- Personnel issues › Task performance
- Personnel issues › Psychological
- Personnel issues › Miscellaneous
From the investigation findings the Wikipedia article reports, sorted into the NTSB's cause areas with AI assistance.
Not plotted · Not plotted: the Wikipedia article gives no coordinates, and its site names no town or airport that matches exactly.
From the Wikipedia article
The 2014 Trier air crash occurred on 12 January 2014, when a Cessna Citation I of Theo Steil GmbH, which had taken off from Shoreham Airfield (United Kingdom), was flown into terrain on final approach to Trier-Föhren Airfield. The two pilots and the two passengers died in the accident, and the aircraft was a total loss.
Accident sequence
Before departure from Shoreham, the captain contacted air traffic control at Trier-Föhren to enquire about the weather conditions. He was then advised to postpone the departure, as there was dense fog and poor visibility at the airport. Regardless of this recommendation, the flight departed as planned; the aircraft lifted off from Shoreham at around 10:00 local time. Alternative airports for a landing would have been Luxembourg Airport and Frankfurt-Hahn Airport. On approach to Trier-Föhren Airfield, the aircraft clipped an electricity pylon in dense fog and crashed. All four occupants were killed.
Investigation and cause
Cause
After the accident, the German Federal Bureau of Aircraft Accident Investigation (BFU) took over the investigation into the cause of the air accident. The investigators attributed the accident to the fact that the pilot in command (PIC) had decided to approach under visual flight rules (VFR) despite the known instrument meteorological conditions prevailing at Trier-Föhren Airfield, that an incorrect vertical profile was flown, probably due to an incorrect setting on the navigation device, and that, due to the lack of visual reference and inadequate situational awareness of the pilots, the descent was not discontinued in time. The BFU determined inadequate crew resource management to be a contributing factor.
Given the weather conditions, the owner of the aircraft who was on board and his wife, both of whom were on board as passengers, expected a diversion to an alternate airport. On the morning of the day of the accident, he had called his son and told him that the aircraft would probably land at Frankfurt-Hahn Airport. According to the passengers' son, his parents had not been under any time pressure. He considered it “completely unimaginable” that his father could have put pressure on the pilots to fly to Trier. In the past, they had often had to divert to another airfield, which had never been a problem.
Translated into English with AI assistance from the German Wikipedia article “Flugunfall bei Trier 2014” (revision 269735740, retrieved 2026-09-19) by its authors, under CC BY-SA 4.0. Extracted as plain text: references, tables, images and some sections are left out; the translation may contain errors, and long articles were cut to their first 700 words. Read the article
NTSB narrative
On January 12, 2014, approximately 1200 universal coordinated time, a Cessna 501 Citation I SP airplane, US registration N452TS, was destroyed when it impacted terrain about 2.5 nautical miles from runway 22, Trier-Fohren Airport, Germany. The pilot, co-pilot, and 2 passengers sustained fatal injuries.
The investigation is under the jurisdiction of the German Federal Bureau of Aircraft Accident Investigation (BFU). Further information may be obtained from:
German BFU Herman-Blenk-Str. 16 38108 Braunschweig
Phone +49 531 35 48 0 Fax +49 531 35 48 246 E-mail box@bfu-web.de Webpage www.bfu-web.de
Verbatim NTSB factual narrative from the NTSB dataset
Sources
German Wikipedia article: Flugunfall bei Trier 2014
- Article
- Flugunfall bei Trier 2014
- Translation
- Into English with AI assistance; names of linked operators and aircraft types from Wikidata. It may contain errors.
- Revision
- 269735740 · 2026-08-17 · retrieved 2026-09-19
- Wikidata
- Q15644830
- Licence
- Text CC BY-SA 4.0, by the article's authors; Wikidata CC0; town positions GeoNames (CC BY 4.0)
NTSB record CEN14WA216
- Event ID
- 20140424X53704
- Case number
- CEN14WA216
- Dataset
- full-current
- Source SHA-256
- 5cf380f0061817c0331a6b2d8cc7e0ee3a79bea469a1001dc5c10e56f35f5ab3
Where each value comes from
- Record
- de Wikipedia article "Flugunfall bei Trier 2014" (page 11948950, revision 269735740), translated into English with AI assistance; merged with NTSB case CEN14WA216 (events / aircraft)
- Date
- Wikipedia infobox: date
- Place and country
- Wikipedia infobox: site
- Map position
- Wikipedia: none
- Aircraft, operator and route
- Wikipedia infobox: aircraft type, registration, operator, origin and destination; route airports from the linked airport articles' Wikidata codes (OurAirports); gaps and aircraft details from NTSB record CEN14WA216
- Operation
- not stated in the Wikipedia article's infobox or opening paragraph
- Fatalities
- Wikipedia: Wikipedia infobox: aircraft fatalities
- Ground fatalities
- Wikipedia: not stated in the Wikipedia infobox
- Summary
- Wikipedia article lead
Source notes (2)
- One occurrence in two sources, merged: the Wikipedia article "2014 Trier air accident" and NTSB case CEN14WA216, matched by the same aircraft registration and date. For this event outside the United States Wikipedia's values are used where the two differ; each value names its source.
- No bulk values were replaced by the NTSB case API.