Neuenkirchen air accident

The Neuenkirchen air accident involving a Messerschmitt Bf 109 of the Wehrmacht's Luftwaffe occurred on 20 May 1944. Due to engine damage, the pilot of the fighter aircraft carried out an emergency landing in an open field near Neuenkirchen in the Steinfurt district. After he had left the aircraft and gone into the village, it exploded. The explosion killed 24 onlookers and injured 25, some of them seriously.

In 2004, the local heritage society erected a memorial at the accident site.

Sequence of the accident

On Saturday, 20 May 1944, at around 14:20, a formation of fighter aircraft took off from Rheine-Bentlage military airfield. Eyewitnesses reported that a Messerschmitt Bf 109 trailing a heavy plume of smoke had broken away from this formation and set up for a gear-up emergency landing in a field on the Dörper Berg near Neuenkirchen in the Steinfurt district. Shortly before landing, the pilot had jettisoned the auxiliary tank located under the fuselage as well as the canopy. The engine had been burning and there had also been fire in the cockpit. After landing, the injured pilot was able to leave the aircraft under his own power. He warned onlookers running up of the danger posed by the aircraft and instructed them to keep sufficient distance. He then went into the village accompanied by anti-aircraft soldiers to report to the mayor. But the onlookers, among them many children and young people, ignored the warning and crowded closely around the crashed aircraft, which exploded shortly afterwards. The left wing was torn off, and fragments of the engine and airframe flew up to 100 m. The explosion killed 16 people instantly. A further 33 people, of whom eight later died, were injured, some of them seriously. The majority of the dead were young people and schoolchildren. The exact cause of the accident is not known, but it is suspected that ammunition for the onboard cannon was detonated by the fire.