What fell from the sky must be found somewhere

[Beer]

There is a website which holds records about known aircraft crash sites in Czechia since 1918. Unfortunately it's all in Czech but with a decent translator you can dig a lot out of it (base data even without). It contains information about known circumstances of each crash site, its location and if possible also an information about artifacts found on the crash site. It can be particularly interesting for everyone interested in WW2 air war or for someone whose relatives were airmen who died somewhere over Czechoslovakia. 

 

This is the link to the website.

 

Particularly interesting sections are these:

WW2 per type

WW2 per date

 

Unfortunately there is only one-way link between the map and the database and that is from the map to the database. 

 

Of course not everything is in and with the time it's getting more and more difficult to search for what happened so long time a go... 

 

One example of what you can find is this. Capt. Robert B. Holmes from 82th Fighter Squadron 78. Fighter Group 8. AF was shot down by FlaK on 16th April 1945 during an attack on Prague Ruzyně (Václav Havel Airport today) airport. He died in the cockpit of the plane and was burried in a near Ruzyně cemetery. His body was later moved by the US officials to a French US military cemetery and later back to USA per wish of the family. The fragments of his Mustang were found in a forest and neighbouring fields in the period of 2007 to 2012 including some rather large parts such as a piece of the wing with the US star still well visible on it. The people behind this website were later contacted by a man whose father was one of the first responders on the crash site (he was working on the field nearby). This family built a small memorial dedicated to Capt. Holmes on the crash site and they keep taking care of it. 

 

There are some interesting records even after the WW2. For example this one. Two F-84F of the Luftwaffe crashed into a forest behind Czechoslovak frontier in 1959 due to navigation error in bad weather (both pilots managed to eject after first impact with the treetops). Long article (in Czech only) about this particularly interesting incident can be found here.  

 

 

Is there something similar for other countries? 

[Beer]

Today I was hiking in the mountains around Liberec city in the northern Bohemia when I stumbled upon this memorial of an aircraft accident from August 1948. 

There was also part of the wing (or something else?) left on the place (most of the other parts are in nearby museum). 

 

The plane which crashed there was Aero C-3D (Czech-built Siebel Si-204). During approach to Liberec airport the plane got into the clouds around the peak of Ještěd mountain (1012 meters high), hit the treetops and broke into pieces which started to burn. There were six people on board - the pilot, the radio operator and the navigator as a crew and the other three passengers were Aero and state aircraft research bureau designers. One of the passengers - Aero chief designer Antonín Husník managed to get all the others out of the flames but himself succumbed to his injuries six days later. Despite the fact that four others died on the spot his sacrifice was not in vain because he managed to save life of one of his colleagues who was the only survivor of the crash. 

 

The plane hit the treetops somewhere in this area (the tower on the mountain was built only some twenty years later).