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The fighter jet crash in Venlo on 1 October 1980 is still etched in the memories of many Venlo residents forty years after the accident: the enormous explosion on the edge of a residential area in Venlo had an enormous impact. The Northrop NF-5A fighter-bomber had departed from Gilze-Rijen airbase around half past nine in the morning for a training flight. Pilot Matthijs Sleegers was supposed to fly via Den Bosch and Nijmegen, but deviated to Venlo to greet his parents there. Once above his parental home on the Casinoweg, the 25-year-old Venlo resident made a number of complicated manoeuvres. In doing so, the aircraft hit one of the houses on the Stalbergweg, causing it to break into pieces and crash into a house. The resident of the house, which burned down completely as a result of the accident, was able to escape the inferno with his housekeeper. Read more news at www.1limburg.nl Download Android app: https://bit.ly/303aWS2 Download iOS app: https://apple.co/36zwrMO