On 11 April 1996, the traditional Easter holidays in Germany ended. These spring days for the Germans were a fun time when you can give each other Easter bunnies and arrange funny carnivals, ridicule everyone and everything, right down to the chancellor. Costumes in carnival costumes filled the central streets and squares of all German cities. They carried lighted sparklers in their hands, and colored rockets flew into the sky from all sides.
Düsseldorf was no exception in this respect. All its inhabitants rejoiced from the bottom of their hearts, despite the national German restraint. Even at the airport, where there was no fuss during the Easter holidays, mummers appeared. But the planes landed and took off strictly on schedule, heading along their routes - to Berlin, Hamburg, abroad.
The smell of smoke was first caught by one of the employees and immediately reported to the management. The Germans, who usually always acted strictly according to instructions, were confused this time. Of course, I didn't want to stir up panic, and I didn't really believe in a fire either. Smoke? Isn't he from an Easter cracker? At first, they thought that it was one of the mummers who organized a carnival in the waiting room: he lit some kind of smoke bomb or lit a sparkler, which he then put into the urn. From this, an unpleasant smell appeared.
They immediately checked everything, but … they found nothing. All urns were in order. Soon, airport officials reported that the smoke that appeared did not at all resemble a fake one. It was mixed with some kind of poisonous odors. So, is it really a fire? But where did it catch fire?
For a while, no one could understand anything, but then it turned out that the smoke was coming from the seemingly deserted lower luggage compartments.
At first, it was decided to use the forces of our own firefighters, send them in search of the source of fire. However, at that moment, the difficulty of fighting the fire was that it turned out to be not only difficult, but almost impossible to penetrate into the lower floors. Heavy poisonous smoke suddenly poured from everywhere from the lower floors, the rooms were filled with carbon monoxide, and firefighters could not get through to the fire. They needed gas masks, but, as often happens, they were not at hand. To top it all off, the electricity went out.
This was the case when "a flame was kindled from a spark." At first, carelessness and inattention, and then the fire raged in such a way that it took great efforts to extinguish it. The airport building burst into flames suddenly and at the same time everything, as if a combustible substance had been spilled around on purpose. At one point, fire ran across the carpets, grabbing plastic furniture and window curtains. At that moment, the service personnel were leaving the airport building in panic. Could passengers have stayed there? Fortunately, they also managed to jump out.
Firefighters with cannons ran around the burning rooms, but the thrust was so great that the jets of water seemed to only contribute to the burning. All combustible finishing materials quickly flared up, even the stones began to melt from the heat. When the entire reserve of its own firefighting forces was used without much success, the airport management finally decided to call on the city firefighters for help. But precious time had already been lost.
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A siren sounded over the airport: “Alarm! Fire! Everyone should leave the building urgently! The dispatchers stopped working immediately. The pilots of the approaching aircraft received the alarm and changed course. Black clouds of smoke rose over the Düsseldorf airport.
Ten minutes later, dozens of red fire engines howled from the city and surrounded the airport building. By this time, the flame had not only engulfed almost all the premises on the first floor, but also broke through to the upper ones. All the internal service rooms were on fire, and downstairs in the luggage room the flame had long been blazing with might and main. Black poisonous smoke continued to spread across the airfield.
The alarm went off all over Germany: “Dusseldorf Airport does not accept! He's on fire. Soon, the flames were out of people's control. They covered not only several floors of the terminal building, but there was a danger of fire in the warehouses, in which there were gas tanks with fuel. Below, in the communication shafts, all cables and pipes were burnt out. The insulating materials with which they were covered gave off toxic smoke and odor. The poison gas was so strong that some of the employees, inhaling it, lost consciousness and were immediately taken away by ambulances.
But the worst became clear soon. No one expected that some of the passengers would be in the lower floors (in the so-called sedimentation tanks). In the commotion that began, everyone somehow forgot about the people who, having left the last flights, waited for them to come and be released to claim their luggage.
Disciplined passengers could not understand anything at first. They were waiting for the flight attendants, but no one came to them. And the smoke and carbon monoxide that appeared soon literally knocked people off their feet. Having breathed them, they lost consciousness and fell to the floor. Some tried to crawl to the doors to get out into the fresh air. Many have already simply lost their orientation. They hit the glass doors and could not escape from the enclosed spaces. During these holidays, none of the employees really knew whether there were still passengers in the drives or not. And if they are there, how many are there? In general, it should be recognized that the outbreak of panic and confusion predetermined a lot of shortcomings in extinguishing the fire and a large number of victims.
For example, the airport management, thinking about saving property, tried to prevent the spread of the flame and gave the command to turn off the current. At one point, all premises were de-energized, and as a result, several dozen passengers were stuck in the elevators. All their attempts to go outside were doomed, no one even heard their cries.
Several people lost consciousness and suffocated in the smoke on different floors. When they were discovered by firefighters who had arrived from the city, it was already too late: neither the orderlies nor the doctors could help them.
The fight with the fire continued for four hours. Dozens of fire trucks were involved, hundreds of people, tons of foam mixture were poured onto the airport building.
When the flames were finally pacified, everyone saw that the modern building of glass and concrete that Düsseldorf residents were so proud of had ceased to exist. Only a crumpled black skeleton remained of it. The building and premises of the airport suffered material damage in the amount of several million German marks.
Disciplined and prosperous Germany was shocked by this tragedy. About twenty people died in it, sixty became disabled, receiving burns of varying severity.
Subsequently, experts from the commission of inquiry established the cause of the fire. The blame were not at all the mummers and the participants in the carnival, as was supposed at the beginning. Safety regulations were violated during normal welding operations. Welding was carried out upstairs on a metal grate floor, sparks flew down through the grates and hit the luggage compartment. There began to smolder and then the folded things ignited. Then the fire spread to the combustible cables. The spread of the fire was facilitated by ventilation hatches, in which a powerful, like a whirlwind, draft was formed, and soon the flame passed from the lower floors to the upper ones. The delay of the airport management to call fire trucks led to devastating consequences and the death of many people.
It was the worst disaster that ever happened at the airports in Germany in the history of aviation development in this country.
From the book: "HUNDRED GREAT DISASTERS". N. A. Ionina, M. N. Kubeev