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The 1945 Luft Hansa Fw 200 Crash was the crash of a Fw 200 operated by Deutsche Luft Hansa about 500 meters north of the Baviarian town of Piesenkofen on 21 April 1945. Neither the crew of 4 nor the

passengers, exstimated to be 21, survived the crash. This was the last scheduled flight to be performed by Deutsche Luft Hansa before the company ceased operation after the end of World War II.

Aircraft
The aircraft involved was a Focke-Wulf Fw 200 Condor registered D-ASHH and named Hessen. The plane was a B-2 civilian transportation variant with four BMW 132Dc engines. The Hessen was one of the two aircraft of this variant to be operated by Deutsche Luft Hansa, the other one being the Pomerania.

Accident
The Hessen was tasked with flying the Lufthansa's flight control personnel from Berlin-Tempelhof to Munich-Riem and then proceed from there to Spain with four Spanish diplomats on board. Takeoff, scheduled for the morning of April 21, had to be postponed due to enemy activity. In spite of bad weather (a storm was raging), the Fw 200 took of at 20.25 pm heading to Munich. At about 21.50 pm the pilot requested radio direction finding assistance from Munich airport. At this point, the plane was approximately flying over Straubing. At about 22.00 pm noise from the Fw 200 four engines could be heard over the Munich airport, but because of the bad weather the plane was not able to land, and kept flying heading southwest. After flying by, the pilot radioed "We fly directly to Barcelona". Shortly thereafter, radio contact from the Hessen was lost. After its disappearence, much was speculated about its ultimate fate, but the crash site couldn't be located.

The Hessen couldn't be found in the following years either. In 1949 an Hungarian national brought the matter back to the attention of the Neumarkt-Sankt Veit city council, together with the life insurance papers of August Künstle, the pilot in charge of the Hessen. A year later it became clear that the Fw 200 had to be the one that had crashed in Piesenkofen. Although this had long been knowkn in the vicinity of the crash site, the news had not been spread. After excavation at the crash site, on 28 January 1952 personal belongings of the passengers were found, the Luft Hansa-issued identification card of August Künstle among the others. The victims' remain were buried in Tegernbach cemetery the following day.

Eye witnesses reported that the Fw 200 had been spotted circling over Piesenkofen while on fire. It brushed against some trees, being pulled upwards, and crashed almost vertically, plummeting into to the ground of a wood north of Piesenkofen. The wreck burned for three days. The left wingtip of the plane was found about 200 meters south of the crash site. Here, three of the four engines of the Hessen were dug out. The locals had initially thought that Adolf Hitler, Joseph Goebbels and Hermann Goring had been on the plane.

Eye witnesses' reports made it possible to reconstruct that the Fw 200 first engine had caught fire, either because of a carburator fire or a lightning strike. The engine exploded while the plane was flying over Piesenkofen and severed the left wingtip, the plane now plummeting out of control.

Since the plane crashed almost vertically into earth, no open strip can be found in the wood. In 1997 a wooden cross was placed near the 20 meter wide crater, that can still be seen. It was renovated in 2003. In 2005, on the 60th anniversary of the crash, a bronze stele was erected on site.