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All Sweden Stockholm Långholmen Crash Site

Långholmen Crash Site

A steel paper plane is all that remains of a crashed aircraft that caused an amazingly small amount of damage.

Stockholm, Sweden

Added By
Henrik Johansson
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The sculpture commemorating the 1993 crash.   hrnick / Atlas Obscura User
The sculpture commemorating the 1993 crash.   hrnick / Atlas Obscura User
The sculpture commemorating the 1993 crash.   hrnick / Atlas Obscura User
The crash site next to the Västerbron bridge.   hrnick / Atlas Obscura User
  Johan SWE / Atlas Obscura User
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About

An air show during the Stockholm Water Festival in 1993 could have ended in catastrophe but miraculously, it missed almost everyone. 

Långholmen, a lush green island located in central Stockholm is an oasis for the city's population, popular for walks, picnics, and swimming. This was abruptly interrupted on August 8th, 1993 when a massive explosion hit the island. It was a Gripen fighter jet that had stalled during a slow-speed maneuver in a display over downtown Stockholm as part of the Stockholm Water Festival. Almost 500,000 spectators saw the pilot eject, the plane fall to the ground, and a black cloud of smoke from the fire rise up over the city. But for all the smoke and fire, miraculously the plane landed in a forested part of the island, right next to the Västerbron bridge, and only one person was injured. The pilot even escaped harm by ejecting, although his parachute got stuck in a tree.

The aircraft had just been delivered to the Swedish Air Force from the Swedish Defense Material Administration in June, only two months before the crash. This plane was, however, flown by a test pilot and was classified as a crash during testing.

Today, the spot of the crash is marked by a stainless steel sculpture of a paper plane buried nose first into a plinth. What could have caused a disaster that day in August 1993, in a big city with hundreds of thousands of people gathered to watch the air show, only ended up causing minor injuries, a crater in a forest, and a sculpture of a crashed paper plane. 

Related Tags

Airplanes Monuments Memorials Disasters Sculptures

Know Before You Go

The metro station closest to the site is Hornstull on the red line south of Stockholm central station. From there it's less than 10 minutes walk north to Långholmen.

Community Contributors

Added By

hrnick

Edited By

Johan SWE

  • Johan SWE

Published

September 15, 2015

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Sources
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%C3%A5ngholmen
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accidents_and_incidents_involving_the_JAS_39_Gripen
  • http://hemmets.se/jas-planet-kraschade-10-meter-fran-barbro/
Långholmen Crash Site
Långholmen
Stockholm, 117 33
Sweden
59.321597, 18.031207
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