On 8 November 1940, a Deutsche Lufthansa Junkers Ju 90 passenger aircraft crashed near the municipality of Schönteichen, Germany, killing all 29 people on board. An investigation of the crash concluded that the accident was caused by ice accumulation on the flight surfaces, which led to an uncontrolled loss of altitude.
The aircraft, registered D-AVMF and named Brandenburg, took off from Berlin Tempelhof Airport at 14:24 with 23 passengers and six crew members. The radio operator contacted ground at 14:48, indicating that they were flying at in clouds. Two minutes later, he reported icing. After a final call from the aircraft at 14:58, there was no further communication from the aircraft. The Ju 90 started descending and crashed into a field. The German musician and journalist Adolf Raskin was killed in the accident.
A post-crash of the aircraft's on-board clock revealed that the crash occurred between three and five minutes after the final communication from the aircraft. Witnesses reported observing the aircraft flying at or less for two to three minutes shortly before the crash, investigators concluded that the decent from must have occurred very rapidly, and concluded that the descent was uncontrolled. Ice was found on the aircraft that was more than thick, which would have critically altered the flight characteristics of the aircraft. In instances in the type of aircraft, severe ice accumulation had been found to jam the elevators between the tail fin end cap and the outer balancer. Investigators found dents on the tail fin end cap, as well as a sheared rivet between the outer balancer and the drive shaft, which led them to conclude that the elevator control had been jammed during flight. On the other hand, the damage was also suspiciously similar to that caused by a foreign object, that was never discovered.