1961 Lufthansa Boeing 720 crash
Boeing 720-030B · Unexplained
From Frankfurt Main Airport to Cologne/Bonn 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
- 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
- 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
Boeing 720-030B
- Aircraft type
- Boeing 720
- 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-ABOK
- Operator
- Lufthansa
- Onboard fatalities
- 3
- Route
- From Frankfurt Main AirportTo Cologne/Bonn Airport
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
In the 1961 Lufthansa Boeing 720 crash, on 4 December 1961 a Lufthansa Boeing 720 crashed during a training flight in Rhineland-Palatinate, killing all three crew members.
Sequence of the accident
The Boeing 720 “Düsseldorf” took off at 12:22 from runway 25L of Frankfurt Airport on a training flight bound for Cologne. At around 12:25 the pilots reported crossing the Nierstein radio beacon at an altitude of 6000 feet. The pilots were then instructed to turn right towards the Rüdesheim navigation point and to report again at an altitude of 9000 feet. The pilots acknowledged this. Shortly afterwards the “Düsseldorf” turned upside down and bored into a field near Ebersheim at a bank angle of 55°. All three occupants died, among them Captain Sussmann, who only two months earlier had prevented the crash of another Boeing 707 in which the cargo, and with it the aircraft's centre of gravity, had suddenly shifted during the flight.
Investigation and cause
Causes
The reason for the sudden dive could never be clearly determined. A jamming of the control surfaces due to a faulty safety lock of the hydraulic controls is suspected, for which Boeing called for an improvement one year after the accident.
Translated into English with AI assistance from the German Wikipedia article “Absturz einer Boeing 720 der Lufthansa 1961” (revision 269734406, 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: Absturz einer Boeing 720 der Lufthansa 1961
- Translation
- Into English with AI assistance; names of linked operators and aircraft types from Wikidata. It may contain errors.
- Revision
- 269734406 · 2026-08-17 · retrieved 2026-09-19
- Wikidata
- Q18286124
- 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 "Absturz einer Boeing 720 der Lufthansa 1961" (page 8405134, revision 269734406), 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 is an airline according to Wikidata
- 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.