Single-Engine Skydiving Aircraft Crashes into Waddenzee Near Borkum (D-FLEC)

Incident Overview and Flight Profile A single-engine aircraft departed Borkum Airport at 1254 local time on a skydiving flight, carrying one pilot and 12 skydivers. Eleven minutes after departure, at 1305 local time, the aircraft was at an altitude of 14,000 feet over Norderney Island when all 12 skydivers exited the aircraft. The pilot then initiated a descent, which was completed at a rate of 4,000 feet per minute while maintaining a constant speed of 160 knots. ## Approach and Impact During the approach to runway 26, the aircraft was observed to be very low over the sea at 232 feet with a speed of 150 knots. On final approach, the aircraft plunged into the Waddenzee and crashed 2,300 meters southeast of the runway 26 threshold. The aircraft was destroyed, and the pilot was killed. ## Investigation and Findings The aircraft was not equipped with a flight data recorder (FDR) or cockpit voice recorder (CVR), which was not against the legislation in force for this type of aircraft and operation. For unknown reasons, the Emergency Locator Transmitter (ELT) failed to activate upon impact with the water. The official investigation concluded that the exact cause of the accident remains unknown.