Altkönig air accident (1971)
Heitkamp Beechcraft King Air · In the air accident on the Altkönig on 22 January 1971, all six occupants on board a Beechcraft King Air 90 were killed
From Frankfurt Main Airport (FRA) to Fritzlar Army Airfield (FRZ)
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
- 6 · 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
- Unknown
Beechcraft King Air
- Aircraft type
- Beechcraft KING AIR
- 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-ILTU
- Operator
- Heitkamp
- Onboard fatalities
- 6
- Route
- From Frankfurt Main Airport (FRA)To Fritzlar Army Airfield (FRZ)
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 air accident on the Altkönig on 22 January 1971, all six occupants on board a Beechcraft King Air 90 were killed. The Altkönig is the third-highest mountain of the Taunus and lies in its Hessian part.
Sequence of the accident
At 15:12 the aircraft with the registration D-ILTU took off from Frankfurt Main Airport. It was on the flight to Fritzlar Army Airfield in North Hesse. However, already in the Kronberg municipal forest the aircraft was smashed in very poor visibility around 820 m south-south-east of and about 150 metres of elevation below the summit of the Altkönig, at approximately altitude. Walkers reported that they had heard the sounds of a low-flying aircraft and shortly afterwards the bang of an impact. The wreckage of the aircraft lay scattered over a wide radius.
After the accident
The population of Wattenscheid was in deep mourning over the sudden death of the town's leadership. Flags were flown at half-mast in front of the town hall, and the Wattenscheider Zeitung appeared with a special edition. The politicians were highly regarded for their actions in the mining crisis and the attraction of new companies. Thousands signed the books of condolence. The memorial service took place in the town hall on 28 January 1971. More than a thousand guests, including the District President Schlensker, who gave a eulogy, as well as almost all the Lord Mayors and chief town directors of the cities of the Ruhr, took leave of the dead.
The burial took place with great participation by the population on 29 January 1971 at the Propstei cemetery and the municipal cemetery of Wattenscheid-Eppendorf.
At the accident site, by the 300-Meter-Weg located east of the Döngesberg spur, there is a memorial stone. In the following years, commemorative events with delegates from Wattenscheid took place here. 50 years after the accident, the WDR Lokalzeit reported on the accident and its consequences for local politics.
Since 1999, streets have been named after Erwin Topp and Georg Schmitz in the naming group “Former mayors in Wattenscheid”.
Translated into English with AI assistance from the German Wikipedia article “Flugunfall auf dem Altkönig (1971)” (revision 269733585, 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 auf dem Altkönig (1971)
- Translation
- Into English with AI assistance; names of linked operators and aircraft types from Wikidata. It may contain errors.
- Revision
- 269733585 · 2026-08-17 · retrieved 2026-09-19
- Wikidata
- Q29015939
- 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 auf dem Altkönig (1971)" (page 9788129, revision 269733585), 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
- not stated in the Wikipedia article's infobox or opening paragraph
- 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.