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.

At the end of World War II, the Allied Powers agreed to divide and occupy Germany, including the capital Berlin.

The Soviets perceived the Marshall Plan to be the foundation for an anti-Soviet alliance and pressured the Americans, British and French to back down.

Soviet troops then began to block the corridor that brought supplies from the western zones of Germany to West Berlin.

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).

General Sir Brian Robertson, the British Military Governor of Germany, immediately went to see his Soviet counterpart, Marshal Vasily Sokolovsky, to protest.

Sokolovsky expressed his regret at the incident and assured Robertson that it was not intentional, which Robertson appears to have believed; at any rate, he cancelled his earlier order to provide fighter protection for all British transport aircraft entering or leaving Gatow (the American authorities had issued a similar order, and they too cancelled it).

The British foreign office issued a statement that "A very serious view is taken in London of today's air crash in Berlin."

RAF fire engines and ambulances were sent from Gatow to the Viking crash site and, although initially allowed into the Soviet Zone, were later asked to leave.