The
Ramstein airshow disaster was one of the world's deadliest airshow
disasterA disaster is the tragedy of a natural or human-made hazard that negatively affects society or environment....
s. It took place in front of an audience of about 300,000 people on August 28, 1988, in
RamsteinRamstein-Miesenbach is a municipality in the district of Kaiserslautern in Rhineland-Palatinate in Germany.-History:As a result of the State of Rheinland-Pfalz administrative reform, Ramstein-Miesenbach, which has a population of approx. 9200, was created on 7 June 1969 from the independent...
, state of
Rheinland-PfalzRhineland-Palatinate is one of the 16 federal states of Germany. It has an area of and about four million inhabitants. The capital is Mainz. English speakers also commonly refer to the state by its German name, Rheinland-Pfalz....
,
West GermanyWest Germany is a common English name for the period of the Federal Republic of Germany between its' formation in May 1949 to German reunification in October 1990, when the German Democratic Republic was dissolved and the five states on its territory joined the Federal Republic of Germany,...
, near the city of
Kaiserslautern' is a city in southwest Germany, located in the Bundesland of Rhineland-Palatinate at the edge of the Palatinate forest . The historic centre dates to the 9th century and is within easy reach of Paris , Frankfurt , and Luxembourg .Kaiserslautern is home to 99,469 people...
at the
U.S.The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
Ramstein Air BaseRamstein Air Base is a United States Air Force base in the German state of Rheinland-Pfalz. It serves as headquarters for the United States Air Forces in Europe and is also a North Atlantic Treaty Organization installation...
airshow
Flugtag '88.
Sixty-seven spectators and three pilots died, and 346 spectators sustained serious injuries in the resulting explosion and fire.
Background
Ten
Aermacchi MB-339The Aermacchi MB-339 is an Italian military trainer and light attack aircraft. It was developed as a replacement for the earlier MB-326.-Design and development:The MB-339 is of conventional configuration, and shares much of the 326's airframe...
PAN jets from the
Italian Air ForceThe Aeronautica Militare is the air force of the Republic of Italy . It has held a prominent role in modern Italian military history and its Aerobatic display team is the Frecce Tricolori.-History:...
display team,
Frecce TricoloriThe Frecce Tricolori , officially known as the 313° Gruppo Addestramento Acrobatico, is the aerobatic demonstration team of the Italian Air Force, based at Rivolto Air Force Base, in the north-eastern Italian region of Friuli Venezia Giulia, province of Udine...
, were performing their 'pierced heart' (Italian:
Cardioide, German:
Durchstochenes Herz) formation. In this formation, two groups of aircraft create a heart shape in front of the audience along the runway. In the completion of the lower tip of the heart, the two groups of planes pass each other parallel to the runway. The heart is then pierced, in the direction towards the audience, by a lone aircraft.
The crash
The
mid-air collisionA mid-air collision is an aviation accident in which two or more aircraft come into contact during flight. Due to the relatively high velocities involved and any subsequent impact on the ground or sea, very severe damage or the total destruction of at least one of the aircraft involved usually...
took place as the two heart-forming groups passed each other and the heart-piercing aircraft hit them. The piercing aircraft crashed onto the runway and the fuselage and resulting fireball of
aviation fuelAviation fuel is a specialized type of petroleum-based fuel used to power aircraft. It is generally of a higher quality than fuels used in less critical applications such as heating or road transport, and often contains additives to reduce the risk of icing or explosion due to high temperatures,...
tumbled into the spectator area, hitting the crowd and coming to rest against a refrigerated trailer being used to dispense ice cream to the various vendor booths in the area. At the same time, one of the damaged aircraft from the heart-forming group crashed into the
emergency medical evacuationMedical evacuation, often termed MEDEVAC or medivac, is the timely and efficient movement and en route care provided by medical personnel to the wounded being evacuated from the battlefield or to injured patients being evacuated from the scene of an accident to receiving medical facilities using...
UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter, injuring the pilot, Captain Kim Strader. Captain Strader died weeks later, on September 17, 1988 at Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio, Texas, from burns he suffered in the accident.
The pilot of the aircraft that hit the helicopter had ejected, but was killed as he hit the runway before his
parachuteA parachute is a device used to slow the motion of an object through an atmosphere by creating drag. Parachutes are made out of cloth, most commonly nylon....
opened. The third aircraft disintegrated in the collision and parts of it were spread along the runway.
After the crash, the remaining aircraft regrouped and landed at
Sembach Air BaseSembach Annex is a United States Air Force installation near Kaiserslautern., Germany and is about 19 miles east of Ramstein Air Base.-Units:...
.
Timeline
| Time |
|
| 15:40 |
Start of the Frecce TricoloriThe Frecce Tricolori , officially known as the 313° Gruppo Addestramento Acrobatico, is the aerobatic demonstration team of the Italian Air Force, based at Rivolto Air Force Base, in the north-eastern Italian region of Friuli Venezia Giulia, province of Udine...
|
| 15:44 |
Collision involving planes Pony 1, Pony 2, And Pony 10 |
| 15:46 |
Fire fighters arrive |
| 15:48 |
First American ambulanceAn ambulance is a vehicle for transporting sick or injured people, to, from or between places of treatment for an illness or injury. The term ambulance is used to describe a vehicle used to bring medical care to patients outside of the hospital or to transport the patient to hospital for follow-up...
arrives |
| 15:51 |
First American ambulance helicopter arrives |
| 15:52 |
Second American ambulance helicopter arrives |
| 15:54 |
First American ambulance helicopter takes off |
| 16:10 |
German ambulance helicopter Christoph 5 from Ludwigshafen arrives |
| 16:11 |
German ambulance helicopter Christoph 16 from SaarbrückenSaarbrücken is the capital of the state of Saarland in Germany. The city sits at the heart of a metropolitan area that bounds westwards to Dillingen and northeastwards to Neunkirchen, in which most of the people of the Saarland live....
arrives |
| 16:13 |
10 American and German ambulances arrive |
| 16:28 |
About 10 - 15 ambulances arrive. 8 medical helicopters (US Air Force, ADAC, SAR) at the scene |
| 16:33 |
First medical helicopter of the Rettungsflugwacht arrives |
| 16:35 |
Doctor on emergency call over the radio:
"We are searching for burnt patients that are pulled and transported unaided away from us by the Americans. They told us nobody from them are here no more. Not all the injured people are transported away by helicopter or ambulance. There is total chaos around us and some of the injured are even transported on Pick Up trucks that are not leaving on emergency exit, they are driving beside the drifting visitors. It was a terrible sight to see people with burnt clothes and sagging burnt skin, squirming with pain of transfixed and shocked with pain on these vehicles. |
| 16:40 |
First low platform trailer for transport of the dead bodies arrives |
| 16:45 |
Second low platform trailer for transport of the dead bodies arrives |
| 16:47 |
At that time the German headquarter for emergencies had no clue of the dimensions, obvious by the radio communication:
"Yes, and that is the problem. We don't know yet what had happened, how many injuries and what else. The leading emergency medical did not send any feedback yet. He wants to have a synoptic view first" |
| 17:00 |
At that time several medics arrive with helicopters. Later they said:
"At the time we arrived shortly after 5:00 there were no injured people no more. We could see that the last badly injured people were loaded into American helicopters. We could see some Pick Up trucks with injured people transporting them away. It was not possible to find an officer in charge, a director of operations or even a contact person [...] so we got to the Johannis hospital in Landstuhl by own initiative. Asking several action forces, paramedics, police officers nobody could name a director of operations. I was asking for a managing paramedic of the operation to coordinate the evacuation. But there was none." |
| 18:05 |
A ambulance helicopter arrives at the Landstuhl Regional Medical Center. The paramedic said later:
"We found a large number of severely burnt, badly injured people absolutely unaided. [...] When I arrived in Landstuhl, severely burnt people partly lay on wooden planks and no paramedics were there. After I aided an injured person and left her with a hospital nurse that attended us at the flight, I was treating several injured people at the helicopter landing zone at the military hospital and did not see even one American medic there" |
| 18:20 |
Dead bodies are transported away from the scene with the two platform trucks |
| 18:30 |
A bus full of injured people arrives in Ludwigshafen (80 km away). A paramedic later said:
"5 severely burnt people were inside the bus. There was no paramedic attending this transport. Just a not German speaking driver unfamiliar with the area, on an odyssey through the town until he was able to find the hospital." |
Emergency response
Of the 31 people who died at the scene, 28 had been hit by
shrapnelFragmentation is the process by which the casing of an artillery shell, bomb, grenade, etc. is shattered by the detonating high explosive filling. The correct technical terminology for these casing pieces is fragments , although shards or splinters can be used for non-preformed fragments...
in the form of airplane parts,
concertina wireConcertina wire is a type of barbed wire or razor wire that is formed in large coils which can be expanded like a concertina. Each coil actually consists of two oppositely wound helices which support each other against crushing while allowing easy longitudinal movement. In conjunction with plain...
, and debris from items on the ground. Sixteen of the fatalities occurred in the days and weeks after the disaster due to
severe burnsA burn is a type of injury that may be caused by heat, electricity, chemicals, light, radiation, or friction. Burns can be highly variable in terms of the tissue affected, the severity, and resultant complications. Muscle, bone, blood vessel, dermal and epidermal tissue can all be damaged with...
, the last being the burned and injured pilot from the helicopter.
In total about 500 people had to seek hospital treatment following the event.
The disaster revealed serious shortcomings in the handling of large-scale medical emergencies by German civil and American military authorities and their cooperation. American military did not allow German ambulances to enter the military base and let them help immediately. The rescue work was criticized for lacking efficiency and coordination. The rescue coordination center in
Kaiserslautern' is a city in southwest Germany, located in the Bundesland of Rhineland-Palatinate at the edge of the Palatinate forest . The historic centre dates to the 9th century and is within easy reach of Paris , Frankfurt , and Luxembourg .Kaiserslautern is home to 99,469 people...
was unaware of the disaster's scale as much as an hour after its occurrence, although several German
MedevacMedical evacuation, often termed MEDEVAC or medivac, is the timely and efficient movement and en route care provided by medical personnel to the wounded being evacuated from the battlefield or to injured patients being evacuated from the scene of an accident to receiving medical facilities using...
helicopters and ambulances had already arrived on site and left with patients. American helicopters and ambulances provided the quickest and largest capacities for evacuating burn victims, but could not provide or find sufficient capacities for treating them or had difficulties to even find them. More than two hours after the disaster, German
paramedicA paramedic is a medical professional, usually a member of the emergency medical services, who primarily provides pre-hospital advanced medical and trauma care...
s arrived at the
Landstuhl U.S. military hospitalThe Landstuhl Regional Medical Center is an overseas military hospital operated by the United States Army and the Department of Defense. LRMC is the largest military hospital outside of the continental United States. It is located near Landstuhl, Germany, and serves as the nearest treatment center...
and found large numbers of severely burned but completely unattended patients. A bus transporting unattended patients arrived at a Ludwigshafen hospital with a specialized burn-victim unit, 80 km from the accident site, nearly three hours after the disaster. The bus driver did not speak German and was unfamiliar with the area. More confusion was added by American military using different standards for
intravenousIntravenous therapy or IV therapy is the giving of liquid substances directly into a vein. It can be intermittent or continuous; continuous administration is called an intravenous drip. The word intravenous simply means "within a vein", but is most commonly used to refer to IV therapy...
catheterIn medicine a catheter is a tube that can be inserted into a body cavity, duct or vessel. Catheters thereby allow drainage, injection of fluids or access by surgical instruments. The process of inserting a catheter is catheterization. In most uses a catheter is a thin, flexible tube , although...
s than German paramedics before a single standard was codified in 1995.
Investigation
Large amounts of video were taken of the accident. Upon completing the cardioid figure, the piercing aircraft (Pony 10) came in too low and too fast at the crossing point with the other two groups (5 aircraft on the left and 4 on the right) completing the heart shaped figure. Lt. Col. Ivo Nutarelli, lead pilot and flying Pony 10, was unable to correct his altitude or slow his speed and collided with the leading airplane (Pony 1) of the left formation, destroying the plane's tail section with the front of his aircraft. Lt. Col. Mario Naldini's plane spiralled out of control, hitting another plane in his formation (Pony 2, piloted by Captain Giorgio Alessio) before crashing onto a taxiway near the runway, destroying a Med-Evac helicopter, fatally injuring the pilot (Captain Kim Strader). The third plane to be involved in the disaster, Pony 2, was severely damaged and crashed onto and beside the runway, exploding in a fireball.
The plane that started the crash, now completely out of control and with the forward section disintegrated following the impact with Pony 1, continued on a ballistic trajectory across the runway. The landing gear came down; it has been suggested that this could have been lowered intentionally as a last second effort by Nutarelli to try and slow his plane down to avoid the impact, but there is no substantial evidence pointing to this and the undercarriage could have been lowered by a number of factors. Pony 10 impacted the ground ahead of the spectator's stands, exploding in a fireball and destroying a police vehicle that had been parked on the "runway" side of the concertina wire that defined the active runway area. The plane continued, cartwheeling for a distance before picking up the three strand concertina wire fence, crossing an emergency access road, slamming into the crowd, and hitting a parked ice cream van. The crash site was considered the "best seats in the house", being centered on the flightline and as close to the airshow as civilian spectators could get. It was the first area in the airshow viewing area that filled up and was very crowded. The entire incident, from collision of the first two planes to the crash into the spectators, took less than 7 seconds, leaving no time for people in the crowd to take evasive action. The low altitude of the maneuver (45 meters above the crowd) also contributed to the short time frame.
External links
- Le crash de Ramstein - Extensive photo gallery
- Robert-Stetter.de - Photo gallery of the incident
- Flugtag88 Memorial - Includes eyewitness accounts
- West Germany Hellfire from The Heavens - Time
Time is an American newsmagazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong. As of 2009, Time no longer publishes a Canadian advertiser edition...
magazine article from 12 September 1988
- Airliners.net - Marc Heesters photograph of the incident
- Ramstein - The air show catastrophe and its aftermath - Information about 2008 documentary, a WDR and SWR
The Südwestrundfunk is a public broadcasting company for the southwest of Germany, specifically the states of Baden-Württemberg and Rhineland-Palatinate. The company has main offices in three cities: Stuttgart, Baden-Baden and Mainz, with the director's office being in Stuttgart. It is an...
co-production
- Rammstein song on YouTube - Includes lyrics and English translation