Copenhagen Airport - Incidents and Accidents

Incidents and Accidents

• 26 January 1947 (1947-01-26) – Douglas Dakota, PH-TCR of KLM crashed after takeoff from Copenhagen, killing all 22 onboard, including Prince Gustaf Adolf of Sweden. The delayed KLM flight from Amsterdam had landed at Copenhagen for a routine stop before continuing to Stockholm. Soon after the Douglas DC-3 aircraft took off, it climbed to an altitude of about 50 metres (150 feet), stalled, and plummeted nose-first to the ground where it exploded on impact. Also aboard the ill-fated flight was American singer and actress Grace Moore. The investigation showed that the crash had been caused by a forgotten rudder lock. Short of time, the captain never performed his checklist and took off not realizing the lock was still in place.
• 17 November 1957 (1957-11-17) – Vickers Viscount G-AOHP of British European Airways crashed at Ballerup after the failure of three engines on approach to Copenhagen Airport. The cause was a malfunction of the anti-icing system on the aircraft.
• 28 August 1971 (1971-08-28) – a Malév Ilyushin Il-18, HA-MOC crashed into the sea while executing an instrument approach. The main cause of the accident was microburst, a particularly dangerous and unpredictable meteorological phenomenon. 23 passengers and the crew of 9 died. 2 passengers survived. The captain of the plane was World War II flying ace of the Royal Hungarian Air Force, Dezső Szentgyörgyi. He was due to retire in less than 3 weeks.