RAF Commemorates 1985 Traffic Collision Victims In Online Ceremony

RAF personnel have held a virtual ceremony to honour 21 people who died in a traffic collision in southern Germany 36 years ago.

Nineteen musicians from the Band of the Royal Air Force Germany were killed after the coach they were travelling in skidded on oil from a damaged fuel tanker and burst into flames on 11 February 1985.

The coach driver and an RAF police officer also died in the accident.

The band members had been travelling from their Rheindahlen base to the RAF’s Bad Kohlgrub survival training school for the establishment’s 30th anniversary when the incident happened on the Nuremberg-Munich A6 autobahn near Langenbruck.

Each year, Royal Air Force Music commemorates those killed in the accident.

However, this year's anniversary has been marked virtually due to the COVID-19 pandemic on the Band of the RAF's Facebook and YouTube channels.

In the video, the narrator says it is the "first time ever" the personnel have not been able to "hold the memorial in the way we normally would".

The video features the playing of The Last Post at the National Memorial Arboretum in Staffordshire and the laying of a wreath.

The ceremony is available to view indefinitely on the Royal Air Force Music's channels. 

Cover image: The Last Post was played during the virtual ceremony (Picture: Royal Air Force Music/YouTube).