Barsebäck air accident
SAS Scandinavian Airline System Vickers 628 Viking 1B · The Barsebäck air accident occurred on 8 February 1949
From Adolfo Suárez Madrid–Barajas Airport (MAD) to Copenhagen Kastrup Airport (CPH)
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
- 27 · 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
- Unknown
- 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
Vickers 628 Viking 1B
- Aircraft type
- Vickers 628
- 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
- OY-DLU
- Operator
- SAS Scandinavian Airline System
- Onboard fatalities
- 27
- Route
- From Adolfo Suárez Madrid–Barajas Airport (MAD)To Copenhagen Kastrup Airport (CPH)
Cause areas
- Not determined › Not determined
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 Barsebäck air accident occurred on 8 February 1949. On that day a Vickers 628 Viking 1B of SAS Scandinavian Airline System, which was on a charter flight from Madrid via Paris to Copenhagen, crashed into the Øresund near Barsebäck shortly before landing at Copenhagen-Kastrup Airport. All 27 occupants on board were killed in the accident.
Accident sequence
The aircraft took off in Madrid. A stopover for refuelling was made in Paris-Le Bourget. The aircraft took off for the onward flight at 16:10. Due to adverse weather conditions, instrument flight conditions prevailed around Copenhagen. At 18:45 the pilots initiated the descent for the approach to Copenhagen. About 16 minutes later, at 19:01 and thus only seven minutes before the scheduled landing, air traffic control informed the pilots that Copenhagen Airport had been closed to arriving aircraft because of the weather. The closure was also declared for the possible alternate airports of Aalborg and Gothenburg. The pilots were instructed to fly holding patterns. At 19:31 the aircraft received landing clearance; air traffic control gave the instruction to descend to 1,000 feet. The pilots received the vectors for an approach to runway 22, but contact with the aircraft was lost and it never arrived at Copenhagen-Kastrup Airport.
Investigation and cause
Cause
After several days of unsuccessful searching, the search and recovery operation was called off. A month later the wreck was discovered in the Øresund, about 18 km north-east of Copenhagen-Kastrup Airport. The wreck lay on the seabed at a depth of 23 metres; the crash site was in Swedish territory two kilometres off Barsebäck in the approach area of runway 22 of Copenhagen-Kastrup Airport. It was assumed that the pilots had lost control of the aircraft about seven minutes before arrival at a height of 700 to 800 feet.
The cause of the accident could never be determined.
Translated into English with AI assistance from the German Wikipedia article “Flugunfall bei Barsebäck” (revision 242137365, 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
Sources
German Wikipedia article: Flugunfall bei Barsebäck
- Article
- Flugunfall bei Barsebäck
- Translation
- Into English with AI assistance; names of linked operators and aircraft types from Wikidata. It may contain errors.
- Revision
- 242137365 · 2024-02-12 · retrieved 2026-09-19
- Wikidata
- Q117313394
- 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
- de Wikipedia article "Flugunfall bei Barsebäck" (page 12594283, revision 242137365), translated into English with AI assistance
- Date
- Wikipedia infobox: date
- Place and country
- Wikipedia infobox: site
- Map position
- none
- 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 an airline in the infobox
- Fatalities
- Wikipedia infobox: aircraft fatalities
- Ground fatalities
- not stated in the Wikipedia infobox
- Summary
- Wikipedia article lead
Source notes (1)
- Wikipedia · Facts from the German Wikipedia article's infobox, translated into English with AI assistance, not checked against an investigation report. Independent review pending.