The crash of the transport plane at Rodenbach has deeply engulfed the collective consciousness of the Main-Spessarter. This is shown by the reactions to an article.
What did you do on the day Apollo 11 landed on the moon? When the wall fell, when two planes were steered into New York’s Twintowers? Events of this kind dig deep into our collective memory. Such moving events also exist on a smaller scale for a region. In the Lohr area, this was the gas explosion in 1978 on the market square and the crash of a Transall Bundeswehr transport machine, which celebrated its 30th anniversary last Monday.
The report by Folker Quack, who was working as a main post volunteer in Lohr at the time, had an unusually strong response on social media. “I can still remember well,” write several users on Facebook. “I was just in Fischergasse,” recalls Juliane Iyabi, 59, from Lohr today. “We heard the bang.” Another Facebook user from Marktheidenfeld still knows exactly that he had lessons in the Lohr vocational school that day.
Tim Jäger, who runs a music school in Marktheidenfeld, only noticed something indirectly. “My father was there with the fire department,” he writes. “It didn’t have to be a pretty sight.” Indeed: “Images like these are memorable,” says 71-year-old Kurt Jäger. For him it was the picture of the soldier in the front left of the cockpit, where it hadn’t burned. Then he still has in his ear how “a uniformed man” counted. “Two or three dead … four, five …”, he pointed to where he recognized bodies. “I didn’t see anything there, just saw a pile of ashes.”
Photo: Lohr fire brigade
–
The fire department did not need to extinguish
Kurt Jäger, then water master in Marktheidenfeld and machinist for the local fire brigade, arrived with his team as the second fire engine. The rain clouds were still hanging in the tree tops, he recalls. Oddly enough, according to his memory, there was nothing to be extinguished: the fire that had charred most of the inmates had probably gone out by itself, possibly because of the rain. The fire truck’s tank would have been 1.8 cubic meters. “That would have been enough to start with.” Had the trees caught fire, their deployment would have been even more dramatic.
“We had a day of hiking with the school that day and were heading towards Rodenbach when the plane flew low over our heads,” recalls Monika Pavlovic. “Since the weather was bad at that time, we quickly went back to school and were allowed to go home.” The then 13-year-old from Lohr only found out about the crash on her way home.
Boys cycled to the crash site
Alexander Schuhmann was just as old at the time. “As children we went to the crash site by bike,” he says of his memory. “We got there pretty quickly and got close to the wreck. We only saw the helpers, the smoke and parts of the wreck, but no bodies. We definitely weren’t allowed to get very close, but we didn’t want to. I don’t forget the smell Back then I found it astonishing that the Bundeswehr was on site very quickly with heavy equipment. ”
Photo: Wolfgang Dehm
–
Stefan Schmidt also got on his bike. When the plane was flying low over Lohr, everyone in the classroom of the Lohr secondary school had looked at the window. “We knew the sound of the Transall machines because they flew over Lohr more often,” he explains. “But this time it was much louder” – because it had flown unusually deep.
He only found out about the crash later. “We cycled towards the crash site. But the Bundeswehr had already closed the roads.”
Later he and his buddies cycled down again. “The smell of kerosene and the overturned trees prompted us not to go any closer.” A few days later, he recalls, the parts of the machine had been put down and covered up on the Main River.
Photo: Hubertus Kreutz
–
Parked as a soldier with live ammunition to shut off
Hubertus Kreutz himself was on site – as one of the first soldiers. His 24-hour watch at the main gate in Hammelburg would have ended at noon when the alarm went off. “We received weapons from the armory and live ammunition. Then it started – with an unknown destination. In Lohr, the captain asked me into his vehicle, since I had local knowledge. I should show him the way to Rodenbach. Only now did I find out Reason for the assignment “, describes the then 22-year-old corporal from Lohr.
Photo: Hubertus Kreutz
–
“When we got to the scene of the accident, we were completely horrified by the tragedy. Everything was very quiet, nobody said anything and the otherwise quick command tone was only whispered. It was a very sad day in my military service.”
Kreutz and his comrades kept watch until late at night. Then they were relieved. Days later he was on site again: his unit was tasked with recovering the wreckage and transporting it to Lohr and the mainland.
- Hubertus Kreutz documented the removal of the rubble with previously unpublished photos, which he made available to us. The photo gallery with archive images can be found here.
Transall crash 1990
to the photo view
Katrin Brendolise, public relations officer for the Lohr local branch of the Technical Relief Agency (THW), recalls that in addition to many emergency services, her local branch was also involved. “Michael Nätscher, today local representative, was still a train driver at the time and came to the scene of the accident on the afternoon of May 11th at the request of the district office.” The assignment was: Take over the night watch at the scene of the accident and look for three crew members who were still missing.
What the technical relief agency was used for
With its 30-strong team, the THW ensured the lighting at the scene of the accident. “An approximately five-meter-high tripod was built from long timber from trees that had fallen on site and the rubble parts of the cockpit were lifted with the aid of a grab,” she quotes Nätscher’s memories. “Until the early morning of the following day, the team worked under high psychological stress to rescue the three missing people from the cockpit. For the helpers, it was an unusual task, which they spent a long time working on.”
Foreboding
Georgia Viola-Richartz from Lohr, then 28, was shocked. Just the day before – she was helping Wombacher friends in the garden – she had commented on the low-flying flight of a Transall with the words: “If they fly even deeper, they will soon clap the trees.” As if she sensed it …
Photo: Roland Pleier
–
Undertaker convoy to Würzburg
All ten inmates, nine soldiers and one civilian were killed in the crash. “That was really bad,” says Bea Scholz, then 28 years old and (as today) employed by Pietät Heldt. In the afternoon, she asked how many coffins we could transport, she says. At that time, most funeral homes would only have had one vehicle. Finally, the undertakers from the area drove in a convoy from here to Würzburg to forensic medicine. “We helped each other in silence.” It was a “depressing atmosphere”.
This week, two candles were lit to commemorate the victims on the memorial cross that the Rodenbach fire department set up at the crash site.
–
