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General Air Flight 005

27 May 1972 · 200 m west of Heligoland-Düne Airfield

De Havilland Canada DHC-6 Twin Otter · Unexplained

From Helgoland-Düne Airport (HGL) to Bremen Airport (BRE)

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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
8 · all aircraft and ground
Ground fatalities
Unknown
Occupants
Unknown
Survivors
5
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
5
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

De Havilland Canada DHC-6 Twin Otter

Aircraft type
de Havilland DHC-6
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
D-IDHC
Operator
General Air
Onboard fatalities
8
Route
From Helgoland-Düne Airport (HGL)To Bremen Airport (BRE)

Approximate · Coordinates from the Wikipedia article; not checked against an investigation report.

From the Wikipedia article

General Air Flight 005 crashed on 27 May 1972 shortly after taking off from Heligoland-Düne Airfield.

Sequence of events

At 18:12 the General Air Twin Otter took off from Heligoland-Düne Airfield, but instead of turning into the planned right turn, the aircraft made a sharp 180° left turn at a height of about 60 metres and crashed into the ground at an angle of 70°. Six people died in the crash, including the two pilots, and two more later in hospital.

Cause of the accident

The Twin Otter was not equipped with flight recorders; this made the investigation more difficult. After examination of the wreckage, it was determined that the left engine had produced less thrust than the right.

Translated into English with AI assistance from the German Wikipedia article “General-Air-Flug 005” (revision 269735819, 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: General-Air-Flug 005
Article
General-Air-Flug 005
Translation
Into English with AI assistance; names of linked operators and aircraft types from Wikidata. It may contain errors.
Revision
269735819 · 2026-08-17 · retrieved 2026-09-19
Wikidata
Q17353588
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 "General-Air-Flug 005" (page 8310266, revision 269735819), translated into English with AI assistance
Date
Wikipedia infobox: date
Place and country
Wikipedia infobox: site; country from Wikidata (P17)
Map position
Wikipedia article 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
flight number in the article title
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.