1964 Lufthansa Boeing 720 crash
Boeing 720-030B · Structural failure
From Frankfurt Main Airport to Frankfurt Main Airport
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
- 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
- Event fatalities
- 3 · 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
- Airline
- WeatherVisual meteorological conditions (VMC): good enough to fly by looking outside. Instrument conditions (IMC): cloud or low visibility, flying by instruments. Glossary
- Not recorded
Boeing 720-030B
- Aircraft type
- Boeing 720
- 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
- D-ABOP
- Operator
- Lufthansa
- Onboard fatalities
- 3
- Route
- From Frankfurt Main AirportTo Frankfurt Main Airport
- 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
- Not recorded
- 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
- Initial climb
- 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
- Fire or explosion in flight
- 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
- Aircraft › Aircraft oper/perf/capability
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
From the investigation findings the Wikipedia article reports, sorted into the NTSB's cause areas with AI assistance.
Approximate · Coordinates from the Wikipedia article; not checked against an investigation report.
From the Wikipedia article
In the 1964 Lufthansa Boeing 720 crash, on 15 July 1964 a Lufthansa Boeing 720 crashed during a check flight over Germany near the Middle Franconian town of Ansbach, killing all three crew members.
Sequence of the accident
The Boeing 720 Bremen took off from Frankfurt Airport at 9:33 on a check flight. At around 9:38 the pilots reported reaching flight level 130 and ending the instrument flight. They intended to fly some check manoeuvres between the Kitzingen navigation point and the Röthenbach radio beacon. The Bremen flew a complete barrel roll, after which the pilots wanted to fly another barrel roll. During this manoeuvre, however, they lost control while inverted. The Bremen was overstressed and broke up at an altitude of 1200 metres (approx. 4000 feet). The wreckage fell to the ground near Petersdorf; all three occupants – including Werner Baake and Captain Hans Zimmermann – died.
Investigation and cause
Causes
The reason for the crash was the overstressing of the aircraft by the barrel rolls; the pilots had flown the barrel rolls even though Lufthansa's guidelines prohibited such manoeuvres with the Boeing 707 and the aircraft was also not certified for them by the manufacturer Boeing.
Translated into English with AI assistance from the German Wikipedia article “Absturz einer Boeing 720 der Lufthansa 1964” (revision 269735095, 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 remarks
PLANE WAS PRACTISING INSTRUMENT APPROACHES WHEN IT DISAPPEARED FROM RADAR.
NTSB's remark from its 1962–1981 archive, as recorded (abbreviated, at most 98 characters): the archive has no narrative
Sources
German Wikipedia article: Absturz einer Boeing 720 der Lufthansa 1964
- Translation
- Into English with AI assistance; names of linked operators and aircraft types from Wikidata. It may contain errors.
- Revision
- 269735095 · 2026-08-17 · retrieved 2026-09-19
- Wikidata
- Q18286128
- Licence
- Text CC BY-SA 4.0, by the article's authors; Wikidata CC0; town positions GeoNames (CC BY 4.0)
NTSB record
- Event ID
- 19640715P000149
- Case number
- Unknown
- Dataset
- historical-pre1982
- Source SHA-256
- abe1a933b4b73583d61684309f7f0610c281e3c1de3537c6471bf2a98ba6481d
Where each value comes from
- Record
- de Wikipedia article "Absturz einer Boeing 720 der Lufthansa 1964" (page 8402543, revision 269735095), translated into English with AI assistance; merged with NTSB case NTSB19640715P000149 (PRE1982 tblFirstHalf (one row per aircraft, grouped by date, place and time))
- Date
- Wikipedia infobox: date
- Place and country
- Wikipedia infobox: site
- Map position
- Wikipedia: 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); gaps and aircraft details from NTSB record NTSB19640715P000149
- Operation
- operator is an airline according to Wikidata
- Fatalities
- Wikipedia: Wikipedia infobox: aircraft fatalities
- Ground fatalities
- Wikipedia: not stated in the Wikipedia infobox
- Summary
- Wikipedia article lead
Source notes (4)
- One occurrence in two sources, merged: the Wikipedia article "1964 Lufthansa Boeing 720 crash" and NTSB case NTSB19640715P000149, matched by the same aircraft maker and place and date. For this event outside the United States Wikipedia's values are used where the two differ; each value names its source.
- From NTSB's 1962-1981 archive (PRE1982), which holds at most a short remark (98 characters, abbreviated) instead of a narrative; the accident type, phase of flight, causes and conditions are NTSB's codes, decoded as the archive defines them.
- Unreviewed: it failed the site's consistency check (see the summary). Unreviewed is an editorial label, not an investigation status.
- The operation category is mapped from the archive's operator and operation codes and has not been reviewed.