Bavaria Fluggesellschaft was a West German airline founded in 1957 and was merged with Germanair to become Bavaria Germanair in March 1977.
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This airline was founded in 1957 as Bavaria Fluggesellschaft Schwabe & Co. In January 1958 the first aircraft, a Piper PA-23 Apache, was used for air taxi work. In 1959 the Twin Beech was added. The Douglas DC-3 came in 1960 and by this time the main business was carrying freight on behalf of Lufthansa. With increased business a Handley Page Dart Herald was added in 1964 and by 1966 three were in service and about 800,000 passenger were carried that year. In order to expand, the BAC 1-11 and the Handley Page Jetstream were added to the regional schedules. That aircraft was involved in a fatal accident on 6 March 1970 (see below). In 1974, a close cooperation was established with Germanair which culminated in the merger of both airlines to become Bavaria Germanair on 1 March 1977.[1]
On 6 March 1970, D-INAH, a Handley Page Jetstream owned by Bavaria Fluggesellschaft departed Munich-Riem Airport, West Germany, for Samedan Airport, Switzerland. The aircraft crashed into snow about 3 km (1.9 mi) and 0.5 km (0.31 mi) left of Samedan Airport's runway centreline. The aircraft was written-off and all nine passengers and both crew were killed. It was discovered that part of the turbine wheel on the number one engine had been destroyed.[2]