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An 8-year-old mistake still sits frozen
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It's standing almost upright on the
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bottom of a French Alpine lake.
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This is a Focke-Wulf Fw 58,
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a German Luftwaffe training aircraft
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from the Second World War. Thousands of
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German aircrew learned to fly in
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but this one never made it home.
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On the 30th of March, 1943,
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four men were on what should have been a
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routine training flight over Lac du
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On the final day, there was a tradition,
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a low-level pass over the lake before
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It wasn't allowed, but it still
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happened. For reasons no one has ever
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fully explained, the aircraft struck the
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surface of the water.
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Two of the crew were killed.
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Two survived, pulled from the lake by
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local fishermen. Today, the wreck lies
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at around 110 m. And what makes it so
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striking is its position.
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Instead of lying flat and broken, the
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aircraft rises almost vertically up out
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The damage tells a story. The nose is
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crushed from the impact, but further
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back, the aircraft is still eerily
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Look closely, and inside the cockpit,
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you can still see a crew flight bag
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sitting exactly where it was left over
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Seeing a diver next to this wreck brings
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home the scale, and just how violent
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that final moment must have been.
