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Lufthansa Flight 540

Name: Lufthansa Flight 540
Start: 1974-11-20
Location: Lufthansa Flight 540, , Kenya

Lufthansa Flight 540 · , Kenya · 1974-11-20

Aviation accident.

The record

Date	1974-11-20
Place	Lufthansa Flight 540, , Kenya
Coordinates	-1.33373, 36.90805 (landmark-level precision)
Scope	World-historic
Sources	Wikidata Q534358
Added	2026-08-14 · source: wikidata

Go deeper. This page records the place, the date and what is tied to them — the full story is told better elsewhere: Wikidata Q534358. What you will not find there is this location’s other time layers, the map, and the memories readers add below.

Coordinates are given at landmark level. A landmark-level coordinate points at the structure; a city-level one points at the settlement, not at a parcel.

Finding photographs

Every one of these is a search, not a guess: the event is documented, so the pictures exist somewhere. Start here.

Wikimedia Commons — freely licensed images, with the licence stated on every file. This is the only source we republish from.
The reference article — its own illustrations, and its citations to archives.
Image search filtered to reusable licences — useful for tracing which institution holds a picture.
National and municipal archives of Kenya, and the picture desks of newspapers published there at the time.

Check the licence before you reuse anything. A photograph being online, or being old, does not make it free; in most countries a 1960s press photograph is still in copyright.

Footage

Newsreel and archive film of events like this often survives. Search YouTube for this event If you find good footage, send us the link and we will attach it to this page.

Time layers within the surrounding city

One place, several moments in time. This location has 6 recorded time layers between 1930 and 1974 — slide through them:

1930

Nairobi National Museum

1952

The Mau Mau emergency is declared

1963

Kenya becomes independent

1969

Tom Mboya is shot on Government Road

1973

The Kenyatta International Convention Centre

1974

Lufthansa Flight 540

1930 — Nairobi National Museum
1952 — The Mau Mau emergency is declared
1963 — Kenya becomes independent
1969 — Tom Mboya is shot on Government Road
1973 — The Kenyatta International Convention Centre
1974 — Lufthansa Flight 540 this page

Harvested from a regional source. This entry came out of Wikidata Q534358 rather than being written here, which is why it is short and why it is marked as needing a check. It is published as a lead for someone who knows the place: fill it in.

You can add to this page

This entry is a skeleton on purpose. If you were there, if your family was, or if you simply know the place: photographs (yours or ones you have the right to share), comments and corrections to the record above, and observations — what the place was like before, after, what the books get wrong. Everything is read by a person before publication and credited the way you ask.

What readers have added

Nothing yet — this place is waiting for its first memory. The form below takes a date, a story, photographs and links.

Do you know something about Lufthansa Flight 540, ?

Old photographs, what your family remembers being on the corner, a shop that is not on any map we have. Contributions are read by a person before anything is published, and we never publish the names of living people.

Nearby in Africa

An event, not a property assessment. This page records what happened at a location. It says nothing about the condition, value or safety of any property there, and it is not part of any environmental record. Methodology and limits.