1948 Gatow air disaster

The 1948 Gatow air disaster was a mid-air collision in the airspace above Berlin, Germany that occurred on 5 April, sparking an international incident. A British European Airways Vickers VC.1B Viking airliner crashed near RAF Gatow air base, after it collided with a Soviet Air Force Yakovlev Yak-3 fighter aircraft. 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 and United States on one hand, and the Soviet Union on the other, and intensified distrust leading up to the Berlin Blockade in the early years of the Cold War.

The historical backdrop of the air disaster was the intensifying clash over the future of Berlin and Germany. At the end of World War II, the Allied Powers agreed to divide and occupy Germany, including the capital Berlin. Through a series of agreements it was decided to divide Germany and Berlin into four sectors; the Americans, British and French shared the western half of Berlin, while the Soviets occupied East Berlin. The division of Germany placed Berlin well inside the Soviet zone of occupation and supplies to West Berlin had to be brought in either overland or by air from the American, British and French zones in the Western half of Germany. Germany was jointly governed by the wartime allies through an Allied Control Council, which periodically met to co-ordinate events and discuss the future of Germany; while Berlin was jointly governed by the Allied Kommandatura.

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