Detmold air disaster
Belgian Air Force Fairchild C-119 Flying Boxcar · Shot down
From Melsbroek Air Base (EBMB) to Gütersloh RAF Station
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
- 38 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- Unknown
- Occupants
- Unknown
- Survivors
- 9
- 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
- Military
Fairchild C-119 Flying Boxcar
- Aircraft type
- Fairchild C-119
- 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
- CP-45/OT-CEE
- Operator
- Belgian Air Force
- Onboard fatalities
- 38
- Route
- From Melsbroek Air Base (EBMB)To Gütersloh RAF Station
Approximate · Estimated position: Detmold, near the place the Wikipedia article names. Not the accident site.
From the Wikipedia article
On 26 June 1963 an air disaster took place near Detmold in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia involving a Fairchild C-119 Flying Boxcar of the Belgian Air Force. The aircraft was accidentally brought down by the British Army from the Sennelager military training area near Detmold. 38 Belgian soldiers were killed.
The crash
When one of the aircraft was flying over the Sennelager military training area at 12:05, the right wing of the aircraft was hit by a mortar shell fired by the British Army. The impact occurred at the fuel tanks, as a result of which the C-119 immediately caught fire.
One of the instructors present, Edmond Chabot, managed to get nine parachutists to jump from the aircraft; all nine survived the accident as a result. Chabot himself lost his life in the crash. Edmond Chabot was posthumously awarded the highest Belgian decoration for this.
The other three aircraft did manage to land safely at the airport.
After the crash
After the crash the nine soldiers who had managed to escape from the crashing aircraft were taken to Gütersloh. In the hospital the survivors were given a medical check-up.
The same day, at around 15 o'clock, a judicial team landed at Gütersloh airport to investigate the accident. The Minister of National Defence Paul-Willem Segers and the commander of the regiment visited the survivors in the barracks at Gütersloh.
The following day those involved were transferred to the military hospital in Brussels to recover further from the accident.
Translated into English with AI assistance from the Dutch Wikipedia article “Vliegtuigramp bij Detmold” (revision 67429406, 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
Dutch Wikipedia article: Vliegtuigramp bij Detmold
- Article
- Vliegtuigramp bij Detmold
- Translation
- Into English with AI assistance; names of linked operators and aircraft types from Wikidata. It may contain errors.
- Revision
- 67429406 · 2024-04-24 · retrieved 2026-09-19
- Wikidata
- Q105979346
- 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
- nl Wikipedia article "Vliegtuigramp bij Detmold" (page 5498899, revision 67429406), translated into English with AI assistance
- Date
- Wikipedia infobox: date
- Place and country
- Wikipedia infobox: site
- Map position
- place the Wikipedia infobox site links (Wikidata 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
- operator named as an armed force or military unit in the infobox
- Fatalities
- Wikipedia infobox: aircraft fatalities
- Ground fatalities
- not stated in the Wikipedia infobox
- Summary
- Wikipedia article lead
Source notes (1)
- Wikipedia · Facts from the Dutch Wikipedia article's infobox, translated into English with AI assistance, not checked against an investigation report. Independent review pending.