1948 Gatow Air Disaster - Crash

Crash

In the days preceding the incident Soviet planes had been buzzing American and British passengers while they passed through the western zones of the city. The Viking was on a scheduled commercial flight from London via Hamburg to RAF Gatow in the British Zone of Berlin. At approximately 2:30 pm while the BEA plane was in the airport's safety area levelling off to land, a Soviet Yak fighter plane approached from behind. 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 Hahneberg 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 Dallgow, a nearby Soviet airbase (although examination of the wreckage showed that the undercarriage was still locked up, so this was unlikely).

Allied investigators later concluded that the "collision was caused by the action of the Yak fighter, which was in disregard of the accepted rules of flying and, in particular, of the quadripartite flying rules to which Soviet authorities were parties."