Crash site	Tanagra, Greece
Airline	Deutsche Lufthansa
Aircraft	Junkers W 33 – D-2018 – Bukowina
Route	Vienna – Budapest – Sofia – Salonica – Athens
Crew	2 – both survived
Passengers	0

 

The crash

Due to bad weather the pilots were unable to locate the Tatoi airport north of Athens, so they decided to return to Salonica before it was getting dark. They soon realized that they would not have enough fuel to reach Salonica, so they decided to try and reach the smaller airport at Tanagra. It was already dark and the plane missed the runway and landed in a field near the airport. The plane turned over and crashed.
The plane was later transported to the Phaliron Air Base.

 

The mail

The plane carried 13 bags of mail from Austria and Germany destined for Greece, Africa and Asia. All the bags were recovered and transported from Tanagra to Athens G.P.O. by car. Three bags were labeled for Athens (from Vienna, München and Oderbeg-Kanderzyn). The post office opened these bags and the contents were 3, 458 and 291 pieces of mail respectively. Of these 742 items only 17 were for Athens or the rest of Greece. The remaining 10 bags were not opened by the Greek Post.
The Greek post did not mark the mail in any ways, so mail can only be identified via the different postmarks.
So far I have only recorded one item related to the Nordic countries – a cover from Denmark to Egypt.

 

Examples of mail

Cover from Charlottenlund, Denmark to Cairo, Egypt. The postmarks on the back show that the cover was in Berlin on 12.1., Athens 14.1. and Cairo 16.1.