Veckerhagen air disaster
Belgian Air Force Fairchild C-119 Flying Boxcar · Controlled flight into terrain
From Gütersloh RAF Station to an unrecorded destination
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
- Unknown
- 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-19/OT-CAS
- Operator
- Belgian Air Force
- Onboard fatalities
- 8
- Route
- From Gütersloh RAF StationTo not recorded
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
On 22 October 1965 an air disaster took place near Veckerhagen in the German state of Hesse involving a Fairchild C-119 Flying Boxcar of the Belgian Air Force. The aircraft crashed during a night-time military exercise. Eight Belgian soldiers were killed in the crash.
The crash
On 22 October at 0:30 at night, the two C-119s with aircraft registrations CP-19 and CP-18 departed a quarter of an hour apart from Gütersloh RAF Station. The aircraft set course towards Kassel for a night-time drop of supplies.
At 1:17 aircraft commander Luc Mommer of the CP-19 made radio contact with the ground personnel when his aircraft was in the vicinity of Walburg. The aircraft began its descent in order to drop the goods, after which it disappeared from radar.
After the manoeuvre the aircraft (CP-19) hit the trees on a hill at an altitude of approximately 405 metres. The aircraft then crashed and came to a standstill at an altitude of 360 metres above sea level. The five crew members and three parachutists were killed in the crash.
The second aircraft (CP-18), which had taken off a quarter of an hour later, noticed a fire near the planned drop zone. The crew of the CP-18 also noted that the planned drop altitude was very low. After dropping the supplies, the CP-18 returned to Gütersloh. There they learned that the other aircraft had crashed.
Investigation and cause
Cause
Several possible causes of the accident were investigated: an engine defect, fire, overloading and a fuel shortage. None of these hypotheses could be confirmed.
In an interview with Dakota News in 2005, Brigadier General Albert Laforce, the then commander of the 15th Wing, said that the Fairchild C-119 Flying Boxcar was not sufficiently equipped to carry out such night flights. As commander, Laforce was not informed of the result of the investigation.
Translated into English with AI assistance from the Dutch Wikipedia article “Vliegtuigramp bij Veckerhagen” (revision 71167041, 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 Veckerhagen
- Translation
- Into English with AI assistance; names of linked operators and aircraft types from Wikidata. It may contain errors.
- Revision
- 71167041 · 2026-05-16 · retrieved 2026-09-19
- Wikidata
- Q106769981
- 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 Veckerhagen" (page 5520563, revision 71167041), 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 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.