A German court sentenced a U.S. airman Nov. 26, 2025, to more than three years in prison for killing a woman in a head-on collision while he was drunk and driving the wrong way on the autobahn near Spangdahlem Air Base in May. (Aspen Reid/U.S. Air Force)
KAISERSLAUTERN, Germany — An American airman who killed a young woman in a drunken wrong-way crash on the autobahn near Spangdahlem Air Base was handed a prison term of over three years by a German court this week.
The unidentified 24-year-old airman is assigned to the base and will remain in custody there during the appeals process, his attorney said Thursday, a day after the Trier District Court sentenced him to three years and four months in German prison.
He was convicted on charges of negligent homicide, negligent bodily injury and intentional endangerment of road traffic.
The airman will appeal in hopes of a sentence reduction, said his attorney Christian Hoelzer. If the prison term is upheld on appeal, the airman would likely serve his time at the Wittlich correctional facility near Spangdahlem, Hoelzer said.
The crash occurred May 3 on the autobahn A60 near Landscheid, a few miles east of Spangdahlem. The airman was driving his Jeep Wrangler the wrong way and hit a car driven by a 23-year-old woman.
She was taken to a hospital, where she died. Two 24-year-old female passengers also suffered serious injuries. The airman’s injuries were minor.
Prosecutors said he had a blood alcohol level of 0.14% at the time of the crash. The legal limit in Germany is 0.05% in most cases.
Germany typically waives its jurisdiction in cases involving U.S. military personnel and German citizens. The Trier prosecutor’s office said the decision to try the airman in a German court was based on the number of victims involved.
One of them testified in court Wednesday that the driver shouted “Oh, no!” shortly before the 3 a.m. collision, according to reporting by German news organization SWR.
She told the court through tears that the driver had picked up her and the other passenger from Hahn Airport after a vacation. One of the passengers underwent emergency surgery after the collision, according to SWR.
Written testimony from service members who were with the airman the night of the collision described him as being so drunk that he became “loud and obnoxious” and was asked to stop drinking several times, according to SWR.
They tried to prevent the airman from driving home to Trier that evening and offered him a place to sleep, but he left during the night without the others noticing, Hoelzer said.
On Nov. 18, the first day of the trial, the airman admitted to consuming large amounts of alcohol and said he did not realize he was driving against traffic on the autobahn. He also apologized in court to the driver’s family and the two other victims.
Trials in Germany are not usually held on consecutive days as they are in the United States.
The sentence handed down matched the prosecution’s recommendation, according to SWR. Hoelzer had argued for two years’ probation, SWR reported.
Stars and Stripes reporter Marcus Kloeckner contributed to this story.
