Description

On 10 July 2002, a Saab 2000 being operated by Swiss Air Lines on a scheduled public transport service from Basel to Hamburg encountered extensive thunderstorms affecting both the intended destination and the standard alternates and due to a shortage of fuel completed the flight with a landing in day Visual Meteorological Conditions (VMC) at an unmanned general aviation airstrip where the aircraft collided with an unseen obstruction. After the aircraft came to a stop with the landing gear torn off, the two cabin crew conducted the passenger evacuation on their own initiative. There was no fire and only one of the 20 occupants was injured. The aircraft was declared a hull loss due to the damage sustained relative to the location.

Investigation

An Investigation was carried out by the German BFU. It noted that on the afternoon of the accident day, an active cold front had been moving eastwards over Germany but that the pre flight briefing received by the flight crew had only mentioned isolated Cb clouds and had not included the then-valid SIGMET for the Berlin FIR or, in particular, the SIGMET issued at 1500Z for the destination Bremen FIR which contained a warning of a squall line reaching FL380 even though the aircraft remained on the ground until 1609Z.