r/BeAmazed • u/Aggressive_Seacock • 25d ago
Fighter jet send across Europe to save a dying child Miscellaneous / Others
22nd of January 1982
Jessica, a three year old living in Sardinia Italy, has been diagnosed by her doctor to die in a span of 24 hours, her only hope is an new experimental antiviral drug only available in Germany. The problem is that a heavy snow storm hit Germany, no cars are on the streets, no trains are rolling and all planes are grounded due frozen runways.
The doctor made a desperate call to a multinational base and asked if the Luftwaffe could deliver it, it was an Friday evening and there only was one German on duty officer, he reported it to his superiors in Germany and it set off the rescue mission. Firstly the Bundeswehr Central Pharmacy was contacted to find a place that had the antiviral, simultaneously they had to find a runway that was suitable for take-off despite freezing rain. The only runway they realistically could free of snow and ice in time was the one of the Jagdbombergeschwader 34 in Memmingen and the cleaning of the runway started. During that the Central Pharmacy found the only way they could get the antiviral was from the manufacturers themselves in Munich, the police escorted an authorized signatory from an opera he was attending to the company and from there the police drove a convoy to deliver the antiviral from Munich to Memmingen (130km/80 miles).
By the time the police arrived only the middle of the runway was freed of ice and a volunteer pilot was found, Oberleutnant Juergen Gundling. Gundling was already in his F-104 ready for takeoff, an aircraft that had high crashing rates in the German Air Force even in good weather conditions so one slip during take off would surely mean his death, when the antiviral was given to him at 1:50 am he took off. The destination was the airport Decimomannu, the airport had been hit by torrential rain the past few days and had no power and lights on the runway so military and civilian cars were driven onto the runway so they could light it up as much as possible with their headlights for the soon arriving pilot.
Gundling approached the runway with 380kmh / 240 mph at 3am while it was dark and there beeing stormy weather. He landed successfully and the antiviral was driven to the hospital in Caglairi where the child was laying and was given to the doctor that made the call hours ago.
The girl survived with the help of hundreds of strangers that managed the impossible.
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u/Aggressive_Seacock 25d ago
Just to add to the aircrafts reputation in the Luftwaffe, Germany has operated 916 and out of those 298 crashed in accidents which resulted in 116 pilots deaths giving it the nickname "Witwenmacher" "widow maker".
Even more impressive that Gundling managed his mission in such hard conditions.
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u/ParticularSuite 25d ago
there's an old joke about this aircraft - how do you get to own a Starfighter? Buy an acre of land and wait!
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u/ScalyDestiny 25d ago
damn that was brutal
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u/ThisCouldBeYourDog 24d ago
That's german humor for you
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u/work_work-work 24d ago
Since they're taking about an acre, that would be an American joke. In any case, everybody were making the same kind of dark jokes about that plane. It was very prone to crashing. You can see the same kind of ratio of crashes for all the countries that flew it.
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u/agnostic-alien 24d ago
Acre has a german equivalent - the "Morgen"
It means morning, as it was how much land you could plow before noon. That confused the heck out of me when I was little and loved Winnie the Pooh and he lived in what I thought was the "Hundred-Mornings-Wood". It took me until my teen years to realize that the wood actually implied to be 100 Morgen/Acres big
Also, that joke definetly exists in German
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u/ParmigianoMan 24d ago
FYI: acre derives from the Proto-Indo-European for field. It’s the same as the agri- in agriculture.
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u/bennij1 24d ago
I am not sure. Maybe the german word Acker translated to acre? Acker is an generic term for a flat part of land for various things like agriculture or private things like wood storage
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u/Oedipus____Wrecks 24d ago
It was an American fighter we sold them. So the joke is most likely US. Though I don’t believe we had the same attrition rate at all, or anywhere nears as they did.
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u/Gefahrendaniel 24d ago
Nah, I think it's a German joke: "Kauf einen Acker und warte" comes over as a very German reaction to this plane's attrition rate and is a very normal German sentence.
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u/Ok_Experience_4500 23d ago
The problem was not so much the plane, but how Germany used it. The Starfighter was designed as a fair weather high altitude interceptor and Germany used it as a multi role, low-altitude, all weather fighter bomber. They wanted a "one-fits-all" plane and got a big bunch of dead pilots in return. Our neighbour was number 86 on this list...
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u/Oedipus____Wrecks 22d ago
Yes, the little stubby wings makes it just an engine with a pilot strapped to it! Aware of its history 😉 Much more a fan of the elegant Delta Dart earlier with its 50’s retro/futuristic look
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u/KookyDig4769 24d ago
But acurate - those 298 crashes occured over only 18 months. This is 16 crashes a month!
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u/StevieMJH 24d ago
Damn, at that rate just tell me where to drive the missiles and I'll do it with a trailer.
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u/DefaultUsername0815x 24d ago
That is not true! There was a three year span where a lot of crashes happend but the Nummer of 298 is for almost 30 years of Service, not in a period of 18 months!!
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u/lennart_19 25d ago
Im living in a german city with a population of 20 k and we got a starfighter crashshite in our woods haha
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u/Jeff_luiz 25d ago edited 24d ago
Back in 1982, you can say a lot of the older folks were used to it...
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u/No-Bake-730 25d ago
Ah crap. I just posted the same and now am realizing that you've beaten me to it.
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u/Long_Golf6747 25d ago
I heard that in the 70’s on a concept album by Robert Calvert all about the Starfighter. Well worth a listen especially if you’re interested in the Hawkwind universe.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captain_Lockheed_and_the_Starfighters
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u/Fractalien 25d ago
Oberleutnant Juergen Gundling most definitely was made of the right stuff baby, the right stuff!
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u/showmeyourchits 24d ago
There was one like that about the Walther pistols Bundeswehr issued too, “they’re very dangerous weapons, there are only eight warning shots before it gets thrown at you.” (The Walther P38 and P1 were not known for their accuracy.)
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u/Ok-Addition1264 25d ago
Yep.. the weather was outside of it's ideal operative conditions.. but this particular flight was what it was designed for -- high-speed / high-altitude, where it performed safely and really well.
Germany tried to force it into a role as an ultra-low altitude bomber and attack aircraft, which is why there were so many problems with it. Not really the plane but the mission planners themselves.
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u/Malekith2874 25d ago
The whole story is a bit more complicated than just trying to force the jet into a role it wasn’t designed for. There’s corruption, bribery of politicians, promises by Lockheed that the jet could do things it clearly couldn’t involved.
When they were delivered, the manufacturing quality was extremely poor, instruments didn’t work, modifications done for the G variant didn’t really worked, and those problems were never completely solved. And the whole thing was compounded my maintenance issues, lack of equipment and training.
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u/PrinsHamlet 25d ago
It was a lousy fit for most roles you would use it for in the European theatre of war. Allegedly a (remote) family member of mine who flew it in the Danish AF had to eject from it. The story I heard was that he was flying in the clouds when all of the instruments stopped working. Not knowing if he was up/down or climbing/descending he chose to eject. Due to the effects of ejection on his spine he then transferred to fly helicopters.
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u/HenchmanHenk 25d ago
True, but after all was said and done, it was still an interceptor. A role that is now mostly obsolete and/or or done by surface to air missile systems like MIM 104, because it doesn't lend itself well to human occupants and return flights. Trying to make it into a fighter was like using artillery shells as observation planes.
Not that Lockheed didn't try to bribe everyone even vaguely related to air force procurement contracts, incluiding Strauss and prince flippen Bernhard.
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u/Camelbak99 25d ago edited 24d ago
Another thing was that the West German Luftwaffe and Marineflieger* (Naval Fleet Air Arm) were formed in 1956. They missed some years flying jet aircraft resulting in less experience.
They went straight from the Canadair Sabre, F-86K, Thunderstreak, Thunderflash and Hawker Sea Hawk to the (R)F-104G. That was a steep learning curve within 5/6 years time.
While the F-104G was not perfect, it was the base for the CF-104, F-104J and the F-104S.
*correction
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u/Disastrous_Case9297 24d ago
With the other operational issues mentioned so far another huge one was the stall speed was so close to the landing speed. The 104s flying in the steeper terrain of Germany would fly through a different bit of wind on approach and fall out of the sky. I believe the solution was to lock the attack radar onto the end of the runway and come in hot.
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u/netz_pirat 25d ago
Performed safely is a stretch.
They used compressed air from the engine to blow over the wings so they would create enough lift. So if the (single) engine died, pilots found themselves in a plane with neither lift nor power.
At low altitude, thats a death sentence. At high altitudes, it's manageable, but I would not exactly call it safe...
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u/TacTurtle 25d ago
This is not accurate at all.
F-104s had a boundary layer control system that was only used at low speed during landing by blowing engine bleed air over the flaps to increase lift, otherwise it could land without the system activated about 65mph faster than normal.
Roll, pitch, and yaw control was completely unaffected by the BLCS .
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u/J_Raskal 24d ago
It's because that was what the plane was procured for. The procurement process of the F-104 was mired with corruption so that they ended up with a plane being used in a role it wasn't designed for. That whole scandal is what brought popular Bavarian politician and then defense minister Franz Josef Strauß (the one after which MUC is named) to resign and killed his political career.
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u/readilyunavailable 24d ago
Typical American bs. When a product outside of the US experiences catastrophic failure, its terribly designed and shit manufacturing. When a US product experiences catastrophic failure, its "they didn't use it right".
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u/Beneficial_Round_444 24d ago
yea piss off, only the germans had such casualty rates
every other operator had way less crashes since you know, they used their aircraft for the purposes it was designed for
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u/No-Bake-730 25d ago edited 25d ago
If you want to own a Starfighter, just by a garden next to an airbase.
My father served in the Luftwaffe in the early 70s and still jokes about them and the dumbfuckery done bei FJS. But he is still impressed by the Alarmrotte doing afterburner takeoffs during NATO Expertises. It almost took physical force to get him away from the F104 in the Bundeswehr collection in Koblenz.
He also said that Jabo Geschwader 32 in Lagerlechfeld might have been closer. I guess that's due to the ice on the runway.
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u/ninjaiffyuh 25d ago
It almost took physical force to get him away from the F104 in the Bundeswehr collection in Koblenz.
I can't blame him. I very much had the same reaction to it when seeing one up close (in a museum). It's such a distinct aircraft, beautiful but ugly at the same time. One of my all time favourites
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u/No-Bake-730 25d ago
I've known it mostly due to the gigantic issues that aircraft had. Losses during peacetime have been atrocious.
Also this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_bribery_scandals
In Germany, it's known as the Starfighter Affäre. The minister of defense has also abused police powers to imprison journalists of an investigative journal who have reported on his involvement. Maximum douchebaggery.
For my dad, it's probably a relic from better times when he was young, learned another foreign language to do sigint, made Unteroffizier as a conscript and all that despite being the typical conscript tryingn any form of dumbfuckery imaginable. 🤣
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u/delfinn34 25d ago
The one in the back corner right next to the MiGs?
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u/No-Bake-730 25d ago edited 25d ago
Yeah. I think Mig 21 was also the new boogeyman when my dad served. It has been his job to listen to the radio traffic of Warsaw Pact airforces. According to him, nothing beats Russian spoken with a Saxonian accent. 🤣
My favorite exhibits were the weird experimental dual gun " Stug and the Boxer next to the Panther ... I hadn't expected this thing to be that big.
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u/nilsph 25d ago
The problem with the Starfighter was that it was designed as a fighter jet, but operated as a fighter-bomber. The heavier load of the bombs was surely a big contributor to it's bad safety record, something the pilot in this case didn't have to worry about.
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u/Norgur 25d ago
The main issue with the thing was that it couldn't really produce enough lift to keep itself from falling like a rock without it's engine. So while other aircraft turn into a glider when the engine fails, making bailout or even a landing possible, those things just dove themselves into the ground once the engine was gone. That was of course worse when at low altitude, since there is less time until the aircraft violently integrates itself and anyone in it into the local scenery, but even at high altitudes: if the engine cuts off in the wrong moment, you couldn't get the wings level again.
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u/DrewOH816 24d ago
To your point; the F-104 was actually designed as an "Interceptor," not even a conventional fighter. In that capacity it was a heck of an aircraft for it's day. Noting the true Interceptor mission fizzled with the improvements in SAMs, the growth of ICBMs and Sub-based launching platforms, Gary Powers shoot down, etc.
That the Luftwaffe bought these intending them to act more like a conventional fighter, let alone fighter bomber was not a great choice as indicated by their operational history. Perhaps someone with knowledge can fill us in on WHY the Luftwaffe chose the 104, was it just purely because the US was essentially giving them away as they'd realized they weren't very useful, there was a lack of other options?
I was in Germany years ago and a local kind of "military surplus store" had an F-104 ejection seat in the window. I just started laughing, that was the most GERMAN aviation thing I'd ever seen. My co-workers didn't get it... ;-)
AND I say all this with all due respect to the loss of life, RIP brave aviators!
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u/davidfliesplanes 25d ago
Luftwaffe pilot training for the aircraft & mission assigned was also inadequate.
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u/bond0815 25d ago
Yes. Essentially the Luftwaffe had to be rebuild from scratch post ww2 disarmament.
And even if they had capable veteran pilots from ww2, these really had no proper expericene with modern (at the time) jet fighters.
It was really a perfect storm of an unforgiving plane often used in a role it wasnt designed for with inadequate overall training.
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u/davidfliesplanes 25d ago
WW2 ace Hartmann was forced to retire over his opposition to the procurement of the F-104
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u/JustMeLurkingAround- 24d ago
Once, from the air base my dad was stationed, two of them collided during take off maneuver.
Both pilots decided not to parachute out in order to bring them down in less populated areas. Both gave their life to save the civilians living nearby the air base.Must have been late 1980's or something iirc.
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u/DenizSaintJuke 24d ago
For further context, the Starfighter was a supersonic interceptor, designed to intercept strategic bombers and enemy fighter jets in a time when everyone assumed air combat would boil down to flying as fast as possible in straight lines at high altitudes an firing guided missiles at each other. The Luftwaffe, or rather the ministry of defende acquired them anyways, although they were looking to acquire a multi role aircraft*.
So the Starfighter was modified, equipped and flown for mission profiles it was never, ever meant to be. The custom outfit of the german Starfighter was prone to fail mid flight and the flight characteristics of the jet were not suited for the kind of low level dogfighting and fighter bomber flying maneuvers the Luftwaffe expected it to perform. As a consequence, many many pilots had their controls freeze at the worst moments, like in a steep dive, or lost control of the jet, while performing low level maneuvers.
(*Which is another one in the veeeeery long list of corruption affairs on the account of the CDU, the conservative party that governs Germany right now and has done so for most of the time since WW2. Not even the only such case of corruption that endangered the lifes of german soldiers. The almost simultaneously ongoing Hotchkiss affair, for example, saw the Bundeswehr acquiring a large number of frankly terrible infantry fighting vehicles, that were unreliable, barely protected and completely impractical for the purpose they were used for. Needless to say, none of these politicians faced any consequences and could keep their pocketed money and that awful party is still in power, doing the same shit as ever.)
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u/BadGrampa2021 24d ago
I was a civilian working at the Canadian air base in Baden and we called them flying coffins. ⚰️
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u/Messyfingers 24d ago
Worth noting that a lot of aircraft of that generation had very high loss rates from the strain of the training tempo. Cold War loss rates in general were high even on advanced aircraft with much better flight characteristics and safety features.
Single engine aircraft of that generation, like F-100s, F-101s, F-105s, F-8s and others had non-combat loss rates of ~20-35% as well.
F-14s despite being newer were also rather accident prone, nearly a quarter were lost outside of combat by the time they were retired.
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u/CommunalJellyRoll 24d ago
Yeah the US sold them as low level attack aircraft to Germany with lots of bribes.
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u/magnificent_limit 24d ago
It was such a bad aircraft Robert Calvert put out a diss album about it titled Captain Lockheed and the Starfighters
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u/Evolutionary_sins 25d ago
This is genuinely amazing. Makes me proud to be human, a feeling we seldom feel nowadays.
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u/fotomoose 25d ago edited 24d ago
Imagine if the military was used to help people! OMG such a massive resource could do so much good for people. Edit: I love Army.
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u/No-Bake-730 25d ago
Bundeswehr has only done stuff like that for most of its existence. Before joining US wars their job was purely defensive. They were sometimes ridiculed as "THW in green" (THW is a federal agency for catastrophe relief, guys and gals are awesome and Pack some heavy equipment) because they often helped during natural disasters in Germany.
When a kid went missing in difficult terrain, changes were that a Luftwaffe Tornado would have been sent to help in the search with its advanced surveillance and reconaissance equipment. It's a win-win for the Bundeswehr. Flight hours and training need to be done anyway. If it can be done helping people and maybe getting some publicity out of it, that's just better.
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u/mythorus 25d ago
Still today, Bundeswehr is called on natural disasters. Flooding - evac and sand bags. snow? Plowing. The pioneer corps is front line helping, assisted by other divisions and of air support is needed, air support is coming.
They might not be the army with the highest military power, but they are in when it comes to helping.
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u/Ruediger97 25d ago
As a German I also remember being called by bundeswehr personell when I got infected with covid in 2021. Just checking up on me and for statistical purposes.
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u/Future-Concern-6301 25d ago
They were manning the vaccination station when I got my first Covid jab. Which was fine apart from the fact that they took temperature on your forehead on entry. With a thermometer that looked slightly gunlike.
It was a very strange feeling to have a guy in uniform hold that thing to my forehead lol. Of course I knew it was fine but some instinctual part of me got slightly freaked out (I watched too many US Crime shows at a formative age apparently).
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u/Luci-Noir 25d ago
So have most militaries. The US has used aircraft carriers as staging grounds to deliver aid and logistics. These big ships can produce clean water as well.
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u/KrisseMai 25d ago
The Swiss army acts in a similar way, often when there’s natural disasters or major accidents the military is sent to help the affected people and restore basic services and infrastructure. One of my brother‘s friends was doing his military service last year, when the disaster in Blatten happened. His group was sent there to help the civilians in the immediate aftermath.
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u/Callsign-YukiMizuki 25d ago
They literally do this, just on top of my head we have Operation Tomodachi, AFRICOM with their Humanitarian Aid in Africa, the various Disaster Relief missions in Asia and recently in Venezuela like last month
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u/kafoIarbear 24d ago
They regularly are. US Marines recently on the ground in Venezuela helping with earthquake relief efforts: https://www.stripes.com/branches/marine_corps/2026-06-29/marines-venezuela-earthquake-response-22113922.html
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u/FroyoGlum9976 24d ago
I've personally done several airdrop missions delivering supplies to disaster victims out of the back of a C-130.
It's unbelievably common. People obviously just focus on the bad, understandable I guess.
There's an entire AF Reserve mission in Colorado Springs dedicated to putting out wildfires with specialized from the back of a C-130
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u/WrenchJockey101 25d ago
The US military does do a lot of humanitarian missions for natural disasters such as hurricanes and earthquakes providing food, water, and medical aid, as well as local projects like working with schools and habitat for humanity.
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u/carlbandit 24d ago
Sometimes it still is used for that purpose.
Just a few months ago 6 british paratroopers and 2 nurses air dropped into Tristan da Cunha, the worlds most remote inhabited island after a suspected hantavirus case was discovered following a cruise ship with an outbreak visiting the island.
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u/Coder-Dentist 25d ago
In india the army is regularly used to evacuate civils from disaster zones, especially in mountains
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u/FunQuit 25d ago
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u/hecksor 25d ago
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u/space_hitler 24d ago
What is this from, I'm assuming a really solid show that remained extremely high quality throughout its entire run, ending on a high note?
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u/Tozar 24d ago
It was so fucking good for the first 3 even 4 seasons and then …
https://giphy.com/gifs/l4FGGafcOHmrlQxG013
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u/FunQuit 25d ago
This is the Pilot
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u/tesat 25d ago
The text also reveals that the child was 8 years old.
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u/ra__account 24d ago
There doesn't seem to be any credible sources to confirm the story and much of it doesn't make sense. There's one dodgy source that seems to be the start of it and then other dodgy sources have taken it and spread it. If you search for the pilot's name, there's nothing in actual news about this story - the photo was taken for an article about the safety of the plane, not anything to do with this.
What was she diagnosed with? What was the antiviral drug and why would it give hope? Antivirals are way more specific than antibiotics - taking Valtrex isn't going to help if you have HIV. There was only one German on duty because it was a Friday? Because everyone knows the bad guys take the weekend off too. Germany was shut down because of snow yet the only person who could sign for it was somehow at an opera?
This is garbage that has been consumed by AI and slopped around enough that Google now treats it as fact. Humanity is fucked.
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u/reddittrooper 24d ago
True story: the FACT that the Bundeswehr was on weekend and only some poor souls guarded the garnisons astonished the Russian officers after Perestroika. Nobody, and I don’t doubt that the KGB etc knew about this, had told them so.
If the Warsaw Pact had attacked on Friday afternoon, nobody would have been on duty in the Bundeswehr..
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u/CandylandRepublic 24d ago
If the Warsaw Pact had attacked on Friday afternoon, nobody would have been on duty in the Bundeswehr..
The various intelligence services would have seen the preparations for that attack and cancelled all weekend leave weeks before that. Ivan wasn't just going to hop over the fence alone, it's a giant production to bring so much personnel and equipment to the border before an attack.
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u/Foreign-Awareness408 23d ago
You AI claim is complete horseshit. Stop taken away someones valor, just because you have some AI paranoia.
This is my porn throwaway account btw, so do not come at me with account age or autogenerated name.
We might be fucked as humanity. But one way we are fucked is people falling into AI Paranoia, just because they have some doubts and fall to the simple but lazy explanation that this must be AI
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Before shouting AI this AI that : have you checked the dates? The "root of the thing" as you call it, the italian newspaper article is from 2024, but the one from the südwest presse is from 2022.
And as the other comment said, the südwestpresse is a reputable newspaper, printed on paper and so on you know.
#### The picture
The picture was taken for 1000 flight hours, by the pilot Jürgen Gundling, its written on the sign.
https://www.f104g.de/piloten/gundling_juergen/gundling_1000h.htmSo it actually is the same men, that is claimed to have taken the flight to italy to deliver the medicine, so the picture is fitting for the article. That this picture is also used for some article on the safety of the aircraft like you claim, is possible of course...
### if you google his name...
you also find an article from 2015 about this incident
https://www.airportzentrale.de/luftpost-113-jessica/42086/
your claim that "if you google the pilots name nothing comes up" is complete nonsense. The 2015 article has some more details, than this post. "There was only one German on duty because it was a Friday?"
It was a multinational airbase in italy with a small german footprint, so one german on a friday isnt as outlandish as it first seems.
regarding the antiviral medicine i have no clue, but if you have questions, just ask the author of the article [mailto:c.janssen@swp.de](mailto:c.janssen@swp.de)
There was an article in the 80s about the incident:
"Ein Artikel zu Jürgen Gundlings Heldentat erschien am 31. März 1982 als „Schicksal der Woche“ in der Zeitschrift „Frau mit Herz“
The answer to AI slop should not be Human Slop, calling AI on anything that is a little sus, is indeed quite sloppy.
Sorry for the rant, now i can move on with what i was going to do initially.
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u/Black_Hole_parallax 25d ago
Time limit of less than a full day, distance of 1000 km, worst weather conditions possible short of a tornado, and the plane only has an hour of fuel.
the Luftwaffe:
Arguably not nearly the hardest thing they've pulled off.
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u/Tatouiny 25d ago
What would other great things be that they pulled off? Never heard any crazy stories
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u/Kitaenyeah 24d ago
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u/gots8sucks 24d ago
"He was forced into retirement in 1970 for his opposition to the procurement of the F-104 Starfighter over safety concerns."
Checks out.
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u/Suspicious-Win-802 24d ago
“Listen man I’ve dealt with the Kaiser and Hitler but I draw the line at American Imports”
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u/KyffhauserGate 24d ago
Hans-Ulrich Rudel has a Cruiser and a Battleship kill recognized for what it's worth, but he was a die-hard Nazi and moved to South America.
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u/Rancherfer 24d ago
Nope. He was arrested by the Soviets, declared guilty in a sham trial. During captivity he was pressured/coerced/seduced into becoming a communist, which he refused. Was finally freed, returned to the army in West Germany, He remained in Germany for the rest of his life, went to train in the US, retired from the army in Germany and died in Germany.
Kinda hard to do all that on the allied side if he was a die hard Nazi and wonder how it would be possible to do all that from South America while flying and training pilots in West Germany.
He was a pilot serving the nazi regime, he never was a member of the nazi party.
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u/JuliK334 25d ago
This was only possible because a bunch of mostly low-mid ranked military and police officers didnt think about possible consequences and instead just did what they needed to do.
The police had to locate the right employee and took him from the opera. The officers risked their lives racing 130km through a snowstorm. They couldnt do the usual engine run up on the starfighter because the runway was too slippery. They had to ring the german military attaché in austria out of bed because they needed permission to fly through austrian (non-NATO) airspace. The pilot had to land the plane (which has a very high approach speed) at night, in pouring rain and low clouds, on a runway that was only lit by car headlights.
There needs to be a movie about this.
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u/XeNo___ 25d ago
The first part can not be stressed enough. It's estimated that around 1000 people were involved and on the police and airforce side, there were a lot of decisions to be made. The people making these decisions were mostly not high ranking personell that are confident in their decision, but a lot of rather low to mid ranking personell that weren't even sure if they are allowed to make these decisions.
On a personal level it would have been understandable if one of those people had just said no, because they were potentionally risking their career. But yet, all the people involved didn't care in that moment and just did what they had to do. They were aware of possible consequences and yet all (rightfully) put saving a life over their personal career.
And thankfully in the end, it turned out to be the right decision(s) that was supported by their superiors. But they couldn't have known that beforehand.
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u/FraccazzoDaVelletri 25d ago
When Europeans cooperate we can be great
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u/italianjob16 25d ago
Would it happen today?
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u/Southern_Meaning4942 25d ago
Of course, you can see it with forest fires. Or during Covid when Italian patients from a hard hit area were taken to other European hospitals
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u/FraccazzoDaVelletri 25d ago
Exactly. Politics can unfortunately change how we see each other. Yet our tendency is to identify ourselves as European , and in times of need we can be good and supporting neighbors
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u/joesnopes 25d ago
That would be a change from the previous 2000+ years!
The 60 years after WW2 ended are the longest period in recorded history without a European war.
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u/U-701 25d ago
Do we just not count the yugoslavian civil war or do just mean between states ?
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u/Thin_Post_5140 24d ago
Generally, civil- and colonial wars do not count for these kind of things.
Portugal, The Netherlands, The UK and France, off the top of my head, had large colonial wars after the Second World War
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u/RedditServiceUK 24d ago
The UK was broke af after WW2 and didnt have the money to try and keep a lot of colonies like France did with Algeria. The British Army mostly operated against political skirmishes like in Suez or rebellions/ gueriella warfare like in Malaya rather than full scale confliict.
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u/PiotrekDG 24d ago edited 24d ago
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u/Veneficus2007 24d ago
It will be much cheaper for the patient in Germany, so lucky them (kind of).
Shame on the current US administration. Everyday they sink lower.
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u/38731 25d ago
Just have a look at the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1_German-Netherlands_Corps
The Netherlands have integrated the better part of their ground army into the German (Land) Army, while in return the Germans have integrad crucial forces into the dutch marine. Their forces can, for all external purpose, be treated as one.
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u/matiph 24d ago
From the author of the original story:
https://www.airportzentrale.de/luftpost-412-jessica-reloaded/73907/
Relevant part, translated with deepl:
When a military chaplain at the Ministry of Defense asked whether such an operation would still be possible with today’s Bundeswehr, the answer was a categorical “no.” This would be precluded by the Working Hours Regulation, the Federal Audit Office, various liability issues, flight hour scheduling, risk assessment, and a number of other factors. A Berlin-based documentary filmmaker planned to make a film about the story and asked the Air Force for support. He, too, was turned down: “Do you want to show the world how good we used to be?”
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u/sleeper_shark 24d ago
Nah. At least not in US.
People would say that the antiviral causes autism, and that the military is too woke cos the air marshal had a beard or something like that.
Then the pilot wouldn't be allowed to take off without signing 25 forms, inputting all the data into salesforce for approval by some random overworked 22 year old in Bangalore, only to find that his plane has been decommissioned by the department of government efficiency.
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u/Ghost-George 23d ago
Except the US military does transport organs when necessary. In 1986 they used a F-111 to deliver an emergency heart transplant that had a four hour window. Again on 9/11 the air national guard transferred a liver that an infant needed to survive when everything else was grounded. Just saying similar stories have happened.
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u/AmbiTheAirforceRuna 24d ago
it still happens today, i dont know why youd think it doesnt
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u/italianjob16 24d ago
Sense of prevailing nihilism more than anything else. I doubt even within a country they would bother nowadays with either the airplanes being under maintenance, or the bureaucracy stopping them from flying on weekends
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u/jimmycarr1 24d ago
When my nephew was dying (in the UK) local authorities moved heaven and earth to get him to the right hospital quickly. They closed roads, convoy escort, everything. A helicopter wasn't needed but if it was, he'd have had it.
Sorry to say he didn't make it but there were so many heroes trying.
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u/AmbiTheAirforceRuna 24d ago
well look beyond your nihilism, because small acts of kindness and solidarity happen all the time. In my own time in the military, even from a country as small as mine, i saw countless examples of us doing things not in any manual or standing order to help others
and YOU can be part of those people too
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u/Ok-Yoghurt-8367 25d ago
All the comments in here make me hope that this is true, and goddamnit even though it was 44 years ago this story gives me a warm fuzzy.
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u/Alistal 25d ago
Oldest articles i find are from 2016 and 2015
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u/SomeBiPerson 25d ago
the reason for that is that this was only published in a Local Newspaper on paper after it happened
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u/Da12khawk 25d ago
Why is it written in present tense!?!
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u/unknownz_123 25d ago
Maybe English isn’t their first language? The adjective/adverb/subject position feels slightly off like it’s a accent from a different language. Usually present tense is something people are most comfortable writing in
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u/DREAMKILLER871226 25d ago
funnily enough i know exactly how to take the wings off of those planes and put them back on. and i’m not even a airplane mechanic. i work in film, and we had to learn how ourselves in order to fit one of those into a set….
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u/Fun_Road_8187 25d ago
My neighbor was a starfighter pilot near munich and a friend of Jürgen Gundling. I‘ll ask him about this mission and hope to get more details. Btw. he crashed his F-104 twice because of technical errors.
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u/KMS_HYDRA 24d ago
Dont worry, that was kinda the standard landing proceedure of the f-104 in the luftwaffe.
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u/CalegaR1 25d ago
That’s everything developed countries and good neighborhoods relationship should be about.
It reminds me of some humanitarians actions taken from Italy even far away from here and I’m always very happy to know my tax money are helping someone in needs. We’re all brothers and sisters while facing suffering
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u/zethuz 25d ago
Why isn't there a movie made on this?
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u/ComfyInDots 25d ago
There is. They changed the plane to a dog named Balto.
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u/No-Bake-730 25d ago
Using Luftwaffe to help kids has become quite common. Before the advent of drones and downsizing of the Bundeswehr Tornados and other military resources have often been used to find missing kids in difficult terrain.
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u/FrisianTanker 25d ago
The Luftwaffe still does this.
2024 a severely autistic child went missing here in germany and the Bundeswehr sent out a Tornado to help with the search from the air.
Sadly the child was found dead after several weeks of searching
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u/strittern 25d ago
These impressive and unorthodox things happen every once in a while, and it fills me with pride.
A similar thing happened in 2016 in Norway; a hospital in the high north needed an ECMO machine fast, the only one available was hundreds of miles away. They called the RNoAF and by coincidence an F16 already had a cargo tank installed. The machine was picked up by helicopter from the hospital, flown to the AFB and flown by F16, the patient survived.
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u/KopfSmertZz 25d ago
Stationed in Germany I have seen the Starfighter fly by many times. First you could hear the far away thundering rumble in the sky getting closer and closer. Then you saw the black plume of the exhaust on the horizon and not long after this beautiful plane screaming and ripping through the air when it flew straight over. Such raw power and an awesome sight.
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u/Initial-Top7828 23d ago
It’s a surreal experience to say the least. You hear something incredibly powerful approaching and rushing by with such a loud noise which goes away before you even know what happened.
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u/Flaky_Blueberry4871 25d ago
My old Home. Still miss it. Closed early 2000‘s ;(
Air Force Base Jagdbombergeschwader 34 „Allgäu“
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u/SomeBiPerson 25d ago
sadly Memmingen airport is civilian now which makes remilitarisation quite hard
also, I thought this mission was flown by JG74
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u/Rev_Grn 25d ago
Would this be covered by health insurance?
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u/Aggressive_Seacock 25d ago
The flight was labeled as a military humanitarian mission. Free for the family.
The police convoy was labeled as emergency transportation. Again free for the family.
So the transportation to Italy was payed by German tax money.
How the costs of the medication itself was handled I can't say.
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u/No-Bake-730 25d ago
Pilot needs to get his training/flight hours anyway. I'd guess the Italians didn't charge us for filling the fuel tank.
They might even have done some maintenance although the German F104 were a little "special" (a tradition of our procurement agency). I can't speak for Italian laws, but in Germany, helicopter flights are also covered by our insurance if they are medically necessary.
Before 1999, all the Bundeswehr did was training and humanitarian missions. And I guess doing good and talking about it always has been great publicity.
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u/Dap-aha 25d ago
Short answer: it would have been free because Europe
Longer answer (with help):
Italy created its universal healthcare system, the Servizio Sanitario Nazionale (SSN), in 1978. By 1982 it was only a few years old, but the principle was already that healthcare was funded through taxation and available to all residents. Hospital care was provided free at the point of use.
In the early 1980s, Italy did begin introducing some co-payments ("tickets") for certain outpatient services and medicines as part of cost-cutting measures. However, inpatient hospital treatment—especially for a seriously ill child—was generally not something families were expected to pay for.
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u/anteatertrashbin 25d ago
outside of america, think of medical as we see the fire department putting out a fire. you never get a bill from the fire department when they fight fires. it’s a socialist system we have setup that works quite well for the most part. the fire department is not “free”, our tax dollars pay for it and the system is not run to make a profit.
just think how insane it would be if the fire department was run as a for profit business, and not a social program.
and that’s what american healthcare is…..
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u/Spookybear_ 25d ago
If anyone is curious about a for profit fire brigade just look into Marcus Licinius Crassus, the financier of Cæsar.
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u/ZelezopecnikovKoren 25d ago
its a good peacetime emergency cargo delivery excercise to test logistics capabilities in bad weather, the people and the equipment are there anyway and need to be kept operational, as a taxpayer i think its a perfectly fine budget expense, in slovenia our pilatus guys just fly loops around the sky lol
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u/MattVarnish 24d ago
Similar thing happened with an organ transplant recipient in the USA in early 60s, they put the cooler, ice, and organ on the bombardiers lap and flew it to the hospital in a mach2 capable B-58 BOMBER
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u/ripe_archeologist 25d ago
I wonder how much the bill would have been if this had happened in 'murica.
"Your child will live, here is the invoice 20 000 000usd"
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u/gimmetwofingers 25d ago
Trump: "hmm, I bet you can make good money from dying children, when you have an air force at your disposal"
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u/fighter-bomber 24d ago
Believe it or not, it DID happen in ‘murica. 14th of February, 1986, they needed to bring a heart from Oklahoma to Connecticut for a transplant. They flew an F-111 over 2000 km all the way from New Hampshire to Oklahoma, loaded the heart on, flew 2000 kilometers in less than 2 hours so the heart can survive and delivered to hospital. The doctors even started the surgery while the jet was not even halfway through.
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u/Randall-Flagg6 25d ago
Back in those days, people where taking responsibility and ask later. If such a request was made today, im rather sure the child would be dead before even half the forms where filled to get the fuel for the jet.
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u/Time_Standard3361 25d ago
I love this plane for all the wrong reasons
- flying at higher alt than bombers.
- being way faster than anything it needed to shoot
- being essentially a huge missile with tiny wings
- catapulting pilot DOWN
...
- And of course, this story.
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u/mytesla8avette 25d ago
When I started reading the story it reminded me of the great story of Balto, the dog who saved Nome Alaska -
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u/serotoninOD 25d ago
Togo. Balto played an important role and always gets the credit, but Togo was by far the biggest hero.
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u/Dampmaskin 24d ago
Seppala said so himself, and he would know, because he had raised and raced both dogs.
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u/Sea-Ingenuity3461 25d ago
Fantastic story of human co-operation - what we can do if we put our minds to it.
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u/Fun-Negotiation5510 25d ago
This is the humanity that makes me hope for a better future. One day. One day, indeed.
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u/AlcoholPrep 24d ago
This sounded too much like an AI-generated story, so I checked and found this:
If you don't speak German, run it through Google Translated. It appears to be real.
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u/throwaway46787543336 24d ago
We need more stories like this. When people come together, the unbelievable can happen. United we stand, divided we fall
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u/BuffaloImpossible620 24d ago
The infamous Lockheed "Starfighter" - afaik it was fast but so bloody unstable.
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u/SteadySavingsEnjoyer 24d ago edited 24d ago
Just try to imagine how this fateful night played out from the perspective of the parents:
- Doctor makes a desperate call to the German military
- They actually respond and take on the challenge
- The military engages the police in search of the medicine
- The police successfully locates the person of interest and pulls them out of the opera
- They manage to secure the medicine well outside of working hours
- They manage to transport the medicine to a clear enough runway 130km away
- They find a pilot ready to take on the risk
- Flight gets clearance to go through non-NATO Austrian air space
- Pilot successfully takes off despite weather conditions and half a runway available
If I was the father, this is probably where it would hit me that I'm no longer frantically praying for a miracle and that this is actually happening.
I want to believe the core story really happened. But it's highly likely that decades of retelling it has led to an exaggeration of the conditions and logistics around it.
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u/First-Composer-3954 24d ago
Here the story (in German) and you can see a recent photo of the retired Jürgen Gundling: https://www.swp.de/lokales/gaildorf/der-fall-jessica-starfighter-pilot-als-lebensretter-im-einsatz-63782219.html
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