Fragtflug Douglas DC-6 accident near Nuremberg

The Fragtflug Douglas DC-6 accident near Nuremberg occurred on 6 May 1974 on an international cargo flight of the Icelandic Fragtflug from Nice to Nuremberg. On final approach, the Douglas DC-6A aircraft used on this flight crashed into woodland, killing all three people on board.

Accident sequence

On 6 May 1974 the aircraft was collected by the three-member crew from a general overhaul in Antwerp. It took off empty at 14:55 on a flight to Nice, where it landed at 17:10. Here 9.9 tonnes of Mother's Day flowers (carnations) were loaded for the Nuremberg wholesaler Simon Kerscher.

At 19:35 the aircraft took off for Nuremberg, where it was due to land at 22:10. When the DC-6 entered the airspace over Middle Franconia, the weather turned bad and it rained heavily. At the Dinkelsbühl radio beacon the crew reported the failure of engine No. 1 (left outer). With three engines the aircraft would still have been airworthy. The air accident investigators later considered it plausible that a fuel leak had developed in the main supply fuel line at that time.

About 20 minutes later (the aircraft had been descending since Dinkelsbühl), over the Röthenbach radio beacon, the pilots received clearance for an approach using the instrument landing system. The crew also asked for a radar-guided approach, which was, however, refused by air traffic control in Nuremberg, since this technology was not yet available at Nuremberg airport at that time. This was acknowledged with "Roger". At 22:21 radio contact with the aircraft broke off. During the night-time instrument landing system approach to runway 28 of Nuremberg Airport, the cargo aircraft clipped treetops four kilometres short of the runway, crashed to the ground and caught fire. The aircraft was completely destroyed; all three occupants were killed.

At the time of the accident there was dense fog in the area around the airport; the cloud base was at treetop height. The landing gear was extended at roughly over Behringersdorf. Earwitnesses reported that an aircraft had flown "unusually low". Seconds later, a woman heard engines roaring and then silence. She immediately notified the police, and the control tower raised the alarm. US Army and Bundeswehr helicopters searched over the dense forest area of the Nuremberg Reichswald for the aircraft wreckage, which was discovered by two "Huey" pilots at 01:17 in the Erlenstegen Forest, near the Bundesautobahn 3. As the search pilots flew over the accident site, they could make out only the tail of the aircraft in the cone of the searchlight; the fuselage and wings lay beneath the uprooted trees of a young pine plantation. The aircraft had left a swath of about 30 by 80 metres in the woodland and lay on the top of its fuselage. The DC-6A had, however, not caught fire, which is why it was initially difficult to find the wreckage. As it later turned out, the aircraft had struck cockpit first, killing the crew instantly.

The rear fuselage segment lay on top of the other debris and had filled the impact crater back in. The forward fuselage was completely destroyed on impact. The crew members were recovered two days after the accident with the help of a Bundeswehr armoured recovery vehicle. The wreckage was strewn with red and pink carnations. The engines were torn off the buckled wings. Only the rear fuselage was virtually undamaged. Reportedly, the DC-6 had only 300 to 1500 litres of aviation gasoline left in its tanks.