SA: 1974 NAIROBI LUFTHANSA CRASH: Cover from Denmark to Pretoria bearing a strike in violet of the English/Afrikaans cachet: "RECOVERED FROM AIR CRASH ON 20 NOVEMBER 1974 AT NAIROBI / HERWEN VAN LUGRAMP OP 20 NOVEMBER 1974 TE NAIROBI." Bearing Danish 2kr tied Roskilde cds 18 NOV 1974. Some faults as usual, nice unusual acceptance, scarce. Lufthansa 540 from Frankfurt to Johannesburg crashed on takeoff from Nairobi Embakasi airport on the morning of 20 November 1974. The flight crew of the Boeing 747 "Hessen" were Captain C Krack, First Officer HJ Shacke and Engineer R Hahn. There were 61 fatalities; the aircraft was completely destroyed by fire. Investigation determined that the cause of the crash was a stall at low altitude precipitated by pilot error in not extending the leading edge flaps for takeoff. This procedure is now automated on 747's in current service. Recovered mail (mainly destined for South Africa) was forwarded on after receiving the bilingual English/Afrikaans cachet.
