Originally posted by Kweassa
Then where does the "1/3rd destroyed during takeoff/landings" quote come from?
There is no way a reasonably operating airforce would ever employ a plane that would attribute whole 30%+ of its damages due to accidents alone, so I've never believed that figure... but I've also seen some people quote such.
Been always wonderin' where it comes from..
I think I may have an answer. They probably messed up understanding German strenght report`s that broke down the unit`s losses to
- due to the enemy action
- due to non enemy action
- aging, overhauls and repairs
These are roughly equal amounts, 1/3-1/3-1/3. I guess they somehow though that all non enemy action is takeoff accident. But then, if someone crashed into the parking plane, or there was an inflight engine or other failure, fuel ran out etc. was also non-enemy action. Moreover, I compared the statisics for the Bf 109 vs the FW 190, and there was no meaningful difference, and this rate was quite typical for other airforces as well.
I doubt the 1500 trainees killed figure. The LW`s fighter arm lost some 7000 dead in all for a start. Other than that, I`d need some explanation for the 109 vet`s absolute enthusiasm toward the plane that allegadly killed them
en masse. And it would be nice to track down the source for the 1500 pilots killed figure too.

As for the source, I`d trust Butch in this regard, mos likely he has loads of 109 loss reports - 26 000 could be almost complete btw, and far more than enough to get a reliable statictics. One source I can guess is the finnish researcher Matti Salonen. He gathered over 30 000 German loss reports with cause, etc. and digitalized it into a database. Punka also used it for his work, and a few years ago, I gave his email address to butch.