West Berlin Air Corridor
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The West Berlin Air Corridors comprised three regulated airways for civil and military air traffic of the Western Allies between West Berlin and West Germany passing over the former East Germany's territory. The airspace within these corridors was for the exclusive use of US, UK and French-registered non-combat aircraft belonging to these countries' armed forces and airlines operated by pilots holding those countries' passports.
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[edit] Routes
The air corridors, each of which was only 25 miles wide and compelled aircraft to fly at a maximum height of 10,000 feet[1], connected the three West Berlin airports of Tempelhof, Tegel and Gatow with other airfields/airports in the following directions:
- northern air corridor: Hamburg, Bremen, Northern Europe
- centre air corridor: Hanover, Düsseldorf, Cologne/Bonn, Western Europe
- southern air corridor: Frankfurt, Stuttgart, Munich, Nuremberg, Southern Europe
For commercial and operational reasons the airlines had their flights routed through the centre corridor whenever possible as this was the shortest of the three air corridors, thereby minimising the time aircraft spent cruising at the maximum permitted altitude of 10,000 ft. With such a low cruising altitude modern jet aircraft could not attain an efficient cruising speed. This led to higher fuel consumption and extended flight times. Therefore, use of the centre air corridor was the least uneconomical option.
[edit] Accidents and incidents
- On 5 April 1948 a BEA Vickers 610 Viking 1B (registration: G-AIVP) operating that day's scheduled flight from Northolt via Hamburg to Berlin collided during its approach to RAF Gatow head-on with a Soviet Air Force Yakovlev 3 fighter, which was performing aerobatics in the area at that time. As a result of the collision, the Viking spiralled out of control and crashed 1.9 miles from the airport on East German territory with the loss of all 14 lives (four crew, ten passengers) on board the aircraft. The Soviet fighter pilot was killed in the accident as well. The subsequent investigation established the Soviet fighter pilot's action, which contravened all accepted rules of flying and the quadripartite flying rules to which Soviet authorities were parties, as the cause of the accident.[1]
- On 29 April 1952 an Air France Douglas C-54A (registration F-BELI) operating an internal German scheduled service from Frankfurt Rhein-Main Airport to Berlin Tempelhof Airport came under sustained attack from two Soviet MiG 15 fighters while passing through one of the Allied air corridors over East Germany. Although the attack had severely damaged the plane, necessitating the shutdown of engines number three and four, the pilot in command of the aircraft managed to carry out a safe emergency landing at Tempelhof Airport. A subsequent inspection of the aircraft's damage at Tempelhof revealed that it had been hit by 89 shots fired from the Soviet MiGs during the preceding air attack. There were no fatalities among the 17 occupants (six crew, eleven passengers) despite the severity of the attack. The Soviet military authorities defended this attack on an unarmed civilian aircraft by claiming the Air France plane was outside the air corridor at the time of attack.[2]
- On 15 November 1966 a Pan Am Boeing 727-21 (registration N317PA) operating the return leg of the airline's daily cargo flight from Berlin to Frankfurt Rhein-Main Airport (flight number PA 708) was due to land that night at Tegel Airport, rather than Tempelhof, due to runway resurfacing work taking place at that time at the latter. Berlin Control had cleared flight 708 for an ILS approach to Tegel Airport's runway 08, soon after the crew had begun its descent from FL030 before entering the southwest air corridor over East Germany on the last stretch of its journey to Berlin. The aircraft impacted the ground near Dallgow, East Germany, almost immediately after the crew had acknowledged further instructions received from Berlin Control, just ten miles from Tegel Airport. All three crew members lost their lives in this accident. Visibility was poor, and it was snowing at the time of the accident. Following the accident, the Soviet military authorities in East Germany returned only half of the aircraft's wreckage to their US counterparts in West Berlin. This excluded vital parts, such as the FDR, the CVR as well as the plane's flight control systems, its navigation and communication equipment. The subsequent NTSB investigation report concluded that the aircraft's descent below its altitude clearance limit was the accident's probable cause. However, the NTSB was unable to establish the factors that had caused the crew to descend below its cleared minimum altitude.[3]
