West Germany was the largest operator of the F-104 Starfighter having purchased 915 of them,
that is 35% of the total number of Starfighters manufactured.
However at the same time the German armed forces had the worst safety record among the
15 countries that operated the F-104, as a matter of fact Germany lost 292 starfighters
during its operational history, almost a third of its Starfighters.
In addition to the aircraft lost, Germany also lost 116 pilots (including 8 Americans)
during its service, the accident rate of the F-104 in the Luftwaffe and the German Navy
was so bad that the plane earned the nickname "Widowmaker" in Germany and that some pilots
even had to eject twice during their careers.
In this video let’s take a look at why the accident rate of the German F-104s was so
high and what factors contributed to it.
But first a little bit of historic context.
In 1956 the German Ministry of Defence created a plan to acquire 2,000 aircraft and have
them distributed in 20 wings across the country in the next five years.
Due to logistical and financial reasons it was decided that the German Air Force and
Navy would only be able to operate one aircraft.
Requirements for this aircraft included: Mach 2 capability, ability to carry both conventional
and nuclear armament, be an all-weather aircraft and be an aircraft that is in at least the
pre-production stage.
Amongst the aircraft considered we have the Dassault Mirage IIIA, the F11F-1F Super Tiger,
which were both in the evaluation and test phase respectively, and the F-104 that was
just entering service in the United States Air Force.
It’s important to mention that the American version of the F-104 didn’t meet the all-weather
requirement, but given that Lockheed promised to make a special variant for it the Germans
chose the Starfighter.
However there were problems, actually many of them.
Let’s take a look at a graph that compares the number of accidents to the hours flown
by the German Starfighters.
As you can see the columns on the left side show an atrociously high accident rate in
the early years of the F-104, however for both 1961 and 1962 we need to take into account
that there were very few F-104s in service.
Delivery of the F-104s began in 1960, which as you can see in the graph that was a very
good year since there was no accident, the next two years are misleading though because
there were only 2 accidents in 1961 and 7 accidents in 1962, and because there were
few aircraft operational at the time the number of flight hours was small which ends up greatly
increasing the accident rate.
Talking about 1962 is special, four F-104 were lost in the same accident in during that
year, the four aircraft were performing a formation training flight when their flight
leader put the aircraft in a maneuver that they couldn’t recover and the four aircraft
ended up crashing on the ground killing all four pilots, because of that the German Air
Force never formed an aerobatic squadron again.
From 1965 to 1966 is when the accident rate actually got really serious, 48 aircraft were
lost in the two years and this resulted in a leadership crisis within the Luftwaffe.
Some measures were taken in 1966, when the Luftwaffe appointed a new chief of staff and
the accident rate gradually decreased to an average of 2 aircraft lost per year which
was along the lines of the other countries that operated the F-104.
In addition to showing how many accidents there were from 1960 to 1989 I have also read
the details of 287 out of the 292 accidents and here is a breakdown of what caused them.
Of course it goes without saying that each accident is usually a combination of several
factors but for the sake simplicity I have divided them on what was the primary factor
that caused the accident.
The most common one was pilot error, responsible for 106 or 37% of the accidents.
In this category the most common mentions in the details of the accidents were spatial
disorientation and pilots who misjudged their ground attacks and could not pull up from
their dive.
In second place we have issues with the aircraft, responsible for 102 or 35% of the accidents.
One of the problems I had while taking a look at the details of the accidents was identifying
if they had been caused by design flaws and manufacturing issues or if it was due to poor
maintenance of the aircraft.
Most common reasons in the category include engine failures, problems with the fuel flow,
oil, flaps and hydraulic systems, and also to a smaller extent aircraft catching fire
on the ground.
Responsible for 17 accidents we have weather, mainly due to lighting strikes that disabled
the instruments of the aircraft, and lastly we have 63 accidents that go on the “other”
category, which includes bird strikes, the ingestion of foreign objects by the engine
and so on.
As you see, contrary to popular belief the majority of the losses of German F-104s wasn’t
caused by the design of the aircraft, instead it was caused by other factors and most commonly
a combination of them.
Now why did these accidents happen and why is pilot error ranked number 1 in the causes?
Let’s take a look.
First, one of the main problems with the whole German F-104 program was that it was too rushed
and too ambitious.
There was an enormous pressure on West Germany to contribute troops to NATO and built up
its air force.
As I mentioned before, they had a plan of operating 2,000 aircraft in five years in
20 different wings and this brings me to my next point.
The Luftwaffe was a young and inexperienced air force when they proposed the plan I’ve
just mentioned, and the same can be said about its pilots especially when it comes to modern
jet aircraft.
It is important to mention that this isn’t the same Luftwaffe that fought during the
Second World War which ceased to exist in 1945, however some of its veterans did return
when the new Luftwaffe was established in 1956, after an 11-year break.
We must also consider the huge jump in terms of technology and performance between the
F-104, a Mach 2 capable jet fighter, and F-84 or the Sea Hawk which were operated by the
German Air Force and Navy respectively.
Training is also another factor to consider because German F-104 pilots were trained in
two separate locations: Germany itself and the American southwest.
Many German pilots trained in the US together with American instructors because of airspace
restrictions in Europe and also because of the different climate since in the American
southwest pilots enjoyed a flying weather almost every day and they much more airspace
and training areas available to them.
Of course though that when pilots had trained in optimal conditions in the United States
they faced some difficulty of adjusting to the German climate and airspace once they
returned to their country, and I should also mention that some operations conducted in
Germany included flying at a very low level, at high speed in poor weather conditions - which
as you know is the perfect recipe for an accident.
Another aspect worth mentioning is the unavailability of planes.
There were few trainer versions of the F-104 in Germany and because of that training with
the weapon systems would only take place when pilots reached their operational unit.
And guess what happened when the pilots finished their training and reached their units?
There were few to no F-104 at their units.
To put it shortly, there weren’t enough Starfighters in both training and operational
units and in order to avoid the decay of their flying proficiency the pilots started to fly
the older F-86s or F-84s just to keep themselves current.
The lack of plane is exemplified by the comments of Joachim Zieger, a former German F-104 pilot:
“We were scheduled to receive the brand-new Starfighters right after handing over the F-84s.
However, that plan did not work (...) In the meantime we were allowed to fly the odd backseat
ride in the F-104F just to get the feeling while we desperately waited for our own “Gustav”
To keep us busy our superiors thought of all kinds of different tasks and subjects.
Daily sports like volleyball, discussion about historical battles [...] or the establishment
of a pilot-choir (...) The most expensive choir in the world consisting of 20 pilots,
each of whom had finished a $250,000 training course, was in top condition and received
standing ovations.”
In addition to the lack of Starfighters there was a lack of support equipment that also
includes spare parts and trained mechanics that could work on the plane.
Lastly, we should also consider the operational use of the F-104 by Germany.
While the aircraft was designed primarily as a high speed fighter, Germany used it to
pretty much everything including interceptions, reconnaissance, air superiority, nuclear delivery
and ground attack missions, and from what I have seen in the accident records several
pilots lost their lives while trying to pull up from a dive.
That kind of accident of course falls under pilot error since it was the pilot’s decision
to judge speed, dive angle and altitude to pull up but it is important to remember that
the F-104 wasn’t initially designed as an attacker.
Now that the we know the reasons behind the accidents, let’s see how Germany dealt with them.
The year of 1966 was the most important year of the Starfighter crisis, both the German
government and population were pressuring the Luftwaffe due to the alarming rate of
Starfighter accidents, because of that Generalleutnant Johannes Steinhoff became the new Chief of Air Staff.
With his new position, Steinhoff grounded all the German Starfighters for three weeks
so that so that inspections and improvements could be performed on the aircraft’s ejection
seat, canopies and the Automatic Pitch Control.
In addition the following measures were proposed to be taken immediately still in the year
of 1966: the installation of rocket packs in the C-2
ejection seats, which was still a downward firing seat,
the installation of hook barriers and approach lighting systems with sequenced flashing lights
at German air bases, the improvement of sea survival equipment,
the speed up of the disbandment of the F-84 units to increase manpower of the F-104 units,
an increase in the number of pilots per squadron and
an increase industrial and maintenance support for these squadrons.
Already in 1967, one year after the new measures had taken place, the German accident rate
for the F-104 dropped significantly to 2.4 accidents per 10,000 flying hours which was
about the same as the other NATO countries that operated the Starfighters.
In addition to the measures mentioned before, the downward ejection seat was finally upgraded
to an upward ejection seat, namely the Martin-Baker GQ 7A, in 1968 which was extremely helpful
in increasing pilot survivability since in previous accidents pilots would many times
hesitate to eject due to low altitude and try to crash land their planes since they
had the downward firing ejection seat.
Also a notable mention is that 1969, Steinhoff won in making the German Parliament approve
a new regulation where pilots of fast-jets in both the Air Force and Navy had to remain
in service until they became 40 years old so that the air force would not lose experienced
pilots, something that was also helpful in reducing the accident rate in later years.
So in order to summarize why Germany had the highest accident rate of all countries that
operated the F-104 starfighter here’s a quote from a former German F-104 pilot:
“There was hardly a week without a crash, and the German Air Force was, in the end,
willing to accept help and advice from outside.
During 1966 the then Deputy Supreme Allied Commander Europe, Marshal of the Royal Air
Force Sir Thomas Pike, looked at the problem.
His conclusion was as follows: high political pressure to supply NATO with a substantial
force to meet the German commitment as part of the nuclear deterrent; lack of experience
with an advanced weapon system such as the F-104 due to the long break between 1945 and
1956, both in respect to the pilots and the engineers; not enough flying hours for daily
training; and Air Force top leaders without extensive flying experience.
From his point of view this was a dangerous combination, which was bound to lead to a
high loss rate.”
Now before we finish with this video I thought share with you some three interesting points
I’ve encountered during my research.
First, because of the lack of trainer F-104s the Germans would put the nose section of
the F-104G with its radar on the Douglas C-47 so that the air force could train three pilots
at the same time on how to use the radar.
Second, the first German to ever fly solo on a F-104 was Gunther Rall, a veteran pilot
of the Luftwaffe that fought during the Second World War with 275 claimed kills and ranks
3rd in the world ranking for air kills.
He joined the new Luftwaffe in 1956 and was tasked to overseeing the German F-104 program
and training.
And finally I should also mention another ace, Erich Hartmann with 352 claimed kills.
Just like Rall he joined the new Luftwaffe but unlike him, Hartmann opposed the whole
German F-104 program saying that Germany didn’t need it nor its pilots could handle the F-104
since they lacked experience.
His altitude of voicing his concerns against the program due to safety considerations wasn’t
very popular amongst the top brass of the Luftwaffe and he ultimately was forced to
retire in 1970.
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This was Ace Combat Fan, hope you have enjoyed video and see you next time!