1948 Gatow Air Disaster

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 ten passengers and four crew on board the Viking were killed, as was the Soviet pilot. The disaster resulted in a diplomatic standoff between the United Kingdom, the United States and the Soviet Union and intensified distrust during the Berlin Blockade.

Read more about 1948 Gatow Air Disaster:  Historical Background, Flight Details, Crash, Aftermath, Enquiries

Famous quotes containing the words air and/or disaster:

    “What did it matter where you lay once you were dead? In a dirty sump or in a marble tower on top of a high hill? You were dead, you were sleeping the big sleep, you were not bothered by things like that. Oil and water were the same as wind and air to you.”
    —Raymond Chandler (1888–1959)

    “The appropriation of radical thinking by lazy, self-obsessed hippies is a public relations disaster that could cost the earth.”
    —Ben Elton (b. 1959)