This extra reserve was necessary because the crew had chosen Stuttgart Airport as their alternate destination due to poor weather conditions.

The minimum weather conditions at the Bremen Airport for that Convair 440 aircraft type permitted a tailwind of no more than 5 knots.

Capitan Heinz Saalfeld began his final descent, but commenced a go-around maneuver at an approximate height of 10 m (30 ft) above the ground.

A few moments later, at 6:51 pm, the 21.5-ton aircraft spun to the left and crashed into a field 400 metres (1,300 ft) beyond the end of the runway.

At the time, the accident was the fourth total loss of a Lufthansa aircraft since the company's reestablishment in 1954: after the crash of a Lockheed Super Constellation on 11 January 1959 during approach at Rio de Janeiro–Galeão International Airport, the airline had also lost two Boeing 720-030B during training flights over West Germany in 1961 and 1964.

The commission released its final report about a year later, concluding that the crash was caused by a chain of technical and human errors.

At this point, he maneuvered the Convair into an extreme flight attitude, leading to a stall and the aircraft striking the ground with its left wing first.

According to the accident report, it could not be ruled out that during the critical landing phase the pilot suffered from a cardiovascular disorder, precluding him from being able to control the aircraft any longer.