AIRLINER CRASHES IN BERLIN

Bay of Plenty Times, Volume LXXVI, Issue 14638, 6 April 1948, Page 3

AIRLINER CRASHES IN BERLIN

HIT BY RUSSIAN PLANE. No Survivors Out Of 14 People Fighter Escorts Ordered In Future London, April 5. The British Military Governor in Germany, General Sir Brian Robertson, tonight personally lodged a protest with the Russian Com-mander-in-Chief, Marshal Sokolovsky, following the crash this afternoon of a British Viking airliner a few miles from Berlin after a collision with a Russian fighter plane. The British plane left London on the normal British European airways service to Hamburg and Berlin this morning, and at the time of the crash was carrying ten passengers and a crew of four. Both the British plane and the Russian aircraft caught fire, and there were no known survivors. A Berlin correspondent says there is some uncertainty about the cause of the tragedy. The Russian aircraft made a dive, hit the starboard wing of the airliner which broke off, and crasb°d hist inside the British sector of Berlin. The Viking exploded on hitting the ground just inside the Russian zone. General Robertson has ordered that all British planes over Germany are to have fighter escort in future, and the - United States Military Governor, General Lucius Clay, said American fighters will escort American planes unless the Russians gave a satisfactory explanation to the British. British European Airways say that the regular service from London will take off tomorrow for Hamburg, but whether the flight will continue to Berlin is at present under consideration.