1948 Gatow air disaster

Infobox Aircraft crash
name = 1948 Gatow air disaster
date = 5 April 1948
type = Mid-air collision
site = near RAF Gatow Berlin, Germany
total_fatalities = 15
total_survivors = 0
plane1_type = Vickers VC.1B Viking
plane1_operator = British European Airways
plane1_tailnum =
plane1_origin = United Kingdom
plane1_destination = RAF Gatow
plane1_passengers = 12
plane1_crew = 2
plane1_survivors = 0
plane2_type = Yakovlev Yak-3
plane2_operator = Soviet Air Force
plane2_tailnum =
plane2_origin =
plane2_destination =
plane2_passengers = 0
plane2_crew = 1
plane2_survivors = 0

The 1948 Gatow air disaster occurred on Monday 5 April 1948 when a British European Airways Vickers VC.1B Viking airliner crashed near RAF Gatow, Berlin, Germany after a mid-air collision with a Soviet Air Force Yakovlev Yak-3 fighter. All 12 passengers (including two Americans and the daughter of General Sir John Shea) and two crew on board the Viking were killed, as was the Soviet pilot.

Crash

The Viking was on a scheduled commercial flight from the United Kingdom to RAF Gatow in the British Zone of Berlin. The collision occurred just as it was coming in to land, apparently after it had already made one circuit. Eyewitnesses testified that as the Viking made a left-hand turn prior to its landing run the fighter dived beneath it, climbed sharply, and clipped the port wing of the airliner with its starboard wing. The impact ripped off both colliding wings and the Viking crashed inside the Soviet Zone, at Hahnerberg just outside the city limits (about 2½ miles northwest of Gatow), and exploded. The Yak crashed near a farmhouse on Heerstrasse just inside the British Zone. All the occupants of both aircraft died on impact. It was also testified that the Yak was doing aerobatics prior to the accident; the Soviet Air Force had not informed Royal Air Force air traffic controllers at Gatow of its presence. They claimed that the fighter was coming in to land at Dahlof, a nearby Soviet airbase (although examination of the wreckage showed that the undercarriage was still locked up, so this was unlikely).

Aftermath

Initially there was a belief that the crash may have been deliberate on the part of the Soviet pilot. General Sir Brian Robertson, the British Military Governor of Germany, immediately went to see his Soviet counterpart, Marshal Vasily Sokolovsky, to protest. Sokolovsky expressed his regret at the incident and assured Robertson that it was not intentional, which Robertson appears to have believed; at any rate, he cancelled his earlier order to provide fighter protection for all British transport aircraft entering or leaving Gatow (the American authorities had issued a similar order, and they too cancelled it).

There was also some controversy as to the actions of the Soviets immediately following the crash. RAF fire engines and ambulances were sent from Gatow to the Viking crash site and, although initially allowed into the Soviet Zone, were later asked to leave. A few minutes after the crash Soviet soldiers entered the British Zone and set up a cordon around their crashed fighter. Major-General Herbert, the British Commandant of Berlin, arrived and asked them to leave, but the officer in charge refused. A senior officer arrived later and agreed to the removal of all but a single guard, in return allowing a British guard to be placed over the wreck of the Viking.

The enquiries

A British-Soviet commission of enquiry was set up on 10 April. The Soviet representative, Major-General Alexandrov, refused to hear the evidence of German or American witnesses, claiming that only British and Soviet evidence was relevant and in any case Germans were unreliable. On 13 April the British ended proceedings by saying they were unable to proceed on this basis.

Thereupon a British court of enquiry was convened by General Robertson and held in Berlin on 14–16 April. This found that the crash was accidental, that the fault in the crash was entirely that of the Soviet pilot, and that Captain John Ralph and First Officer Norman Merrington DFC of BEA were not in the slightest to blame for the crash. However, the Soviets announced that the fault was entirely that of the British aircraft, which emerged from low cloud and crashed into the fighter. ["The Gatow Air Crash: British Claim Rejected by USSR", "The Times", 21 May 1948] The British enquiry heard that the Viking was flying at 1,500 feet, well below the cloud base at 3,000 feet.

Footnotes

References

*Foreign Office, Report of the Court of Enquiry into the circumstances of the collision between a Viking Airliner and a Soviet Service Aircraft on 5th April 1948, 1948
*"British Aircraft Down Near Berlin", "The Times", 6 April 1948
*"The Gatow Air Disaster", "The Times", 10 April 1948