SOVIET REJECTS BRITISH REQUEST FOR COMMISSION

Grey River Argus, 9 April 1948, Page 5

SOVIET REJECTS BRITISH REQUEST FOR COMMISSION

(Rec. 5.50). LONDON, April 8. Marshal Sokolovsky rejected General Sir Brian Robertson’s suggestion that a quadripartite commission should investigate the Yak-Viking collision, and has again laid the blame for the collision on the British authorities. His reply repeated Soviet newspaper allegations that the Viking swooped from a cloud and hit the Yak. and stated that the Viking was disobeying the Berlin air traffic regulations. The reply said: “Attempts in your letters, and particularly in the British licensed press, to represent th? air accident as the result of a deliberate attempt on the part of the Soviet pilot, can be regarded bv me only as a slander, which has nothing to "do with the accident, and apparently is designed for provocative ends. As you already know, from our conversation, the catastrophe occurred because the British transport plane, of whose flight the Soviet authorities had not been notified, suddenly appeared from a cloud and hit the tail of the Soviet training plane, which already had its undercarriage down ready to land. Thus, we are dealing with a breach by a British plane of the regulations laid down by the Control Council, which resulted in the death of a Soviet, pilot and the destruction of his machine. “I hope you will give strict instructions that’ British planes, in future, will obey the flying regulations laid down hv the Allied Control Council. This will release me from the necessity of taking measures to guard flight security over the Soviet zone oi Germany, and particularly over the Sot let airfields in the Berlin area. “As far as an investigation of the causes of the catastrophe is concerned, I have already proposed to you th? formation of an Anglo-Soviet commission to investigate the circumstances and causes of the accident. The Soviet representatives are always ready to take part. in the work" of such an Angle-Soviet commission. It is completely obvious that a Quadripartite commission is not called for, and would lead only, '.p a delay in the investigation, wmen would suit neither the British nor the Soviet side”.