Dear Less Hair,
Re TAT Flights To SAR, These were operated by TAT Export, which was
a subsidiary company of TAT. They had flight numbers starting with "IO"
TAT used Flight prefix "VD". (Not the ideal prefix for English speakers)
Dan air took over the service. On 11th May 1990, they injured several
passengers when the captain "Bob Dearling" had to avoid a head on
collision with a U.S.A F. fighter. Passengers were thrown from their seats.
I remember a DA flight LGW/TXL B737 piloted by a female captain, which
at the time was very very unusual. She flew for BA when DA and BA
became one. I flew several times with her. She never failed to disappoint
with her heavy landings. I was always impressed with Boeing for building
such a strong aircraft.
You may be interested in the website.
www.danairrembered.com other incidents.
The contents may put you off flying for ever.
Lance Shippey

Lance,
Thank you for your kind words about Monarch. There were some pilots and engineers based in Berlin but the majority of pilots were sent from the Uk on weekly tours. We also flew IT out of the UK and in Winter 89 we also had a lease to Guatemala.The Berlin based cabin crew were French and German employed by euroberlin.
The fleet was all B737-300 with a mix of analogue and efis aircraft and I think we had seven there at one point.The long term plan was to replace them with B757 but then the wall came down and the world changed overnight.
The euroberlin operation was primarily internal flights the shortest being Hamburg , the longest Munich Riem but there were also weekend holiday charters to the Canaries and also flights to Turkey with gastarbeiter. We also flew a service to Gatwick for a short time on behalf of LH.
I once flew a midnight sun flight to Tromso in Norway from Berlin.We never saw the sun that night as it was drizzling!

Apologies for the thread drift but what is there not to love about the CV990? Here is Modern Air's N5617 powering off the gate at Oakland on 10 August 1973.


https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....c9ee865f4d.jpg

Correct website address for Dan Air remembered is: https://www.danairremembered.com/

Fris B. Fairling and BEagle
Thanks for the correct web connection for the great Dan Air remembered site.
The photograph of the Modern Air Transport CV990 in Oakland with the engine
exhaust smoke brought back memories of the Swissair CV990 Coronado's which
were used of the MAN/ZRH route, before being replaced by DC9's I think only
Swissair and Modern Air Transport referred to them as "Coronado" There is
a beautiful example of a SR CV990 at the Verkehrsmuseum in Luzern, which
was partly delivered from ZRH to Luzern by boat on the vierwaldstaettersee,
(Lake Luzern).

Lance Shippey

The notable thing about the Berlin corridor routes coming up to the fall of the wall is how rapidly they were expanding. TWA came in quite late in the day, EuroBerlin started up, Dan-Air notably expanded their schedules, Pan Am put the A300 on, etc. Nobody seemed to be reducing either. Yet I was at Tegel just maybe two years later and it was a complete rollover, with Lufthansa dominating. Notable also was how services to non-German cities was significantly building up, where previously there were hardly any. I presume the corridor routes subsidy only applied to West German destinations.

Comments above about various holiday charter operators, but as elsewhere they changed emphasis pretty much from year to year and trying to condense it all into a paragraph is not really practical. But I will put in a word for Tempelhof, the main airport for the city until 1975 when the new terminal opened at Tegel and everything transferred over. It had a bit of a renaissance after 1990 and I used a convenient little service on a 146 by Conti-Flug from London City a couple of times. THF was even closer in than LCY, it was like having an airport in Kensington Gardens, just walk out into streets, past the shops and into the U-Bahn on the corner. I was there last year and went to see it; the terminal building is just as always but nothing going on, probably how it was from 1975-90. Shame it's gone; I believe a lot of Berlin thinks the same.

WHBM ,
''The notable thing about the Berlin corridor routes coming up to the fall of the wall is how rapidly they were expanding '' .
Certainly BA were , we'd already started TXL-BRU with ATPs , and about to start TXL-VIE again ATPs when collapse occured . We'd also had some f/os banned from corridor flying when accents on r/t were questioned , notably an Aussie and a Dane . One 73s 't other ATPs . Made more work for crew control .

rgds condor .

Hi condor17,
Great hearing from you again. I just tried to post message on the Geoffrey Hargreaves story
did the message didn't go through, I will try again later.
With reference to the Corridor. and the Australian and Danish pilots not being able to be on
flights. An interesting bit of information was recently to come to light about the Hughie Green
Cessna 310 corridor f He was flying from the Stuttgart area to Gatow.
27 nm from Berlin, he encountered two soviet a/c 1 x Mig, and 1 (possibly Yak) They opened
fire with 6 shots. Evasive flying caused him the loss of an engine. He finally made it to Gatow.
He had big problems getting clearance to fly the 310 back through the corridor, so returned to
England on a BEA Viscount. and after two weeks returned to Berlin with BEA, and eventually
got clearance to leave Gatow via the Hanover corridor. Hugh Green had a Canadian Passport.
The last one was number PZ345435 1992-1997. He was born in London England. but I am not
sure if he had a British Passport as well as the Canadian one in 1963 when the shooting took
place. He Blamed the British Government for not warning him that the Soviets may object to
his flight plan. The British Government made a settlement "Out of Court" for £300. in his favour.

Lance Shippey

Hughie Green.
The Cessna 310f was G-AROK, and apparently suffered
left engine failure do the turbulence caused by the YAK's
sonic boom causing the aircraft to fly almost inverted. The
Cessna was imported in 1961 under N5848X.
Afterwards Hughie bought a Cessna 336 skymaster through
Rogers Aviation at Cranfield. Registered G-ASLL. with the
owner G. and M Air interests. The M. was Michael Miles, who
was also a game show host.
Lance Shippey

West Berlin Mayor Walter Momper knew of the fall of the Wall 10 days before it would fall.
Oct 26th.1989 (Sunday). Manfred Stolpe leading figure of the Protestant church in the GDR
acting as "Go-between" invites West Berlin Mayor Walter Momper to lunch in the Rose
Parlour of the Palast hotel in East Berlin. The other invited guests are Guenter Schabowski
SED leader, and Erhard Krack, Mayor of East Berlin. They are to discuss the GDR's new
Travel law and, extra border crossings to be opened. Schabowski gives Momper a date of
Dec.1st as the earliest They also discuss Erich Honecker being "The furthest removed from
the reality of his country". and the Free German Trade Union Federation's leader and Polit
Buro member Harry Tisch's liking for alcohol. Harry had flown to Moscow on Oct. 16th. and
discussed the overthrown of Erich Honecker with Gorbachev. November 6th. West Berlin's
Mayor Momper, reliant financially of Helmut Kohl's Bonn government writes a three page
letter to Kohl, requesting that "Welcome money" (Begruessungsgeld) to paid into the GDR's
State Bank. They in turn would hand it over to those East Germans intending to visit West
Germany. The letter to Kohl never arrived at Kohl's office, possibly having been intercepted
by the Stasi. The meeting of Momper and Schabowski does not remain a secret for long.
Nov.3rd. The Allies were miffed and annoyed that unauthorised talks had taken place behind
their backs. Harry Gilmore, U.S. envoy urges Momper to report to the Allies.

Lance Shippey

Welcome Money and the USAF.
Begruessungsgeld of Dmk100.00 was made available to every GDR citizen visiting
West Germany. After the fall of the wall on the night of Nov.9th 1989. East Germans
could claim their money at any West German bank. West Berlin Mayor Momper thought
that there would be sufficient cash in the West Berlin banks, as the East Germans would
use the money immediately, and it would go back into the West Berlin banks. This was
however not the case. The west Berliner's were very generous, and hardly allowed the
visiting East Berliners to put their hand in their pockets. 4 Billion Dmk's was paid out by
West Berlin banks in 7 weeks until Dec. 29th 1989. The banks were open 24/7. and
running out of cash. The USAF flew 4 tons of Dmk's from Frankfurt to West Berlin on a
military aircraft one night. West Berlin also had to print 250,000 street maps for use by
the GDR visitors.
Guenther Schabowski and East German Union leader Harry Tisch appear to be two of
a minority of East German "Fat Cats" who showed any form of remorse after the downfall.
and said "They regretted the injustices that had taken place in the GDR. In 1993 Tisch
said " "We preached water, and drank wine ourselves".

i'm aware that the Andover of 60 Squadron did not deliver Willy Brandt back to Cologne
on the night of November 10th. and would like to know if Capt. Dodson, knew that Willy
and party were not on board, and was the flight plan lodged for a flight THF/CGN, or a
direct flight THF/Wildenrath? Also what happened to the Burgermeisters who were flown
Wildenrath to CGN that morning, how did they get back from CGN to Wildenrath ?

Lance Shippey

November 9th 1989, Helmut Kohl and most of his cabinet were on
a State Visit to Poland, and attending a State dinner in the evening
of the wall falling. The Kohl government decided to fly to Berlin on
the 10th November and return to Poland on the 11th November.
Kohl's advisors decide at 12.45 on the 10th Nov. that they some of
them would fly back at 14.00hrs at the earliest., but are not sure if
the Captain knows that their departure has been brought forward
to 14.00hrs. No food had been ordered for the flight, and the Polish
government allow an immediate take off once Kohl and party reach
the aircraft, The problem of course was the corridor. Kohl and party
had to make a detour via Hamburg.
How did Kohl fly from HAM to BER ? Was it with a USAF or RAF
military a/c or civilian PA or BE special flight ?
Lance Shippey

SXF Approach and Tower frequencies.
I would like to know from anyone who has flown into SXF if
ATC communications were in German. or German and English,
or German and Russian.? I realise that English is standard,
but remember at FRA ATC communications were in English
and German. I also recall a case at MAN, when a Russian
speaking check-in girl was called to the tower, to assist a pilot
who was lost on approach, and had very minimal English.
Lance Shippey.

Kohl is said to have used some USAF aircraft to go from Hamburg to Tempelhof after having arrived from Poland on his Luftwaffe airplane. This was negotiated with the US Ambassador in Bonn. I think he typically used a USAF Sabreliner to commute to Berlin back then.
https://www.dw.com/de/gastbeitrag-de...ete/a-51142949

Dear Less Hair,
Thanks for this excellent link.
My questions well answered
Lance Shippey

You are welcome. I appreciate your excellent input very much.

C.I.A. declassified documents reported that the
border crossing at Walterdorfer strasse opened
in 1963 linking West Berlin to SXF had 180.000
pax using the border crossing in 1970.
Also importantly that Interflug had started a new
service in 1970 which was not announced in any
airline guide (ABC or AOG) nor in the press.
The flight was SXF-Ulaanbataar Mongolia,
The Mongolians established an embassy in GDR
in Karlshorst A relationship existed because of a
similar ideology. The Mongolians opened an Embassy
in the FRG in Troisdorf in 1974.
Lance Shippey

Sort of. The "flight", fully marketed by Interflug, was on their (brand new that year) Ilyushin 62 from Schonefeld to Moscow, then onward on an Aeroflot IL-18, not even a jet, stopping at Irkutsk to Ulan Bator in Mongolia. It did appear in the 1970 Interflug timetable, here :

if70-10.jpg (1919×1341) (timetableimages.com)

Trivia question for New Year : In 1970 there was one airline, BEA, who flew nonstop from West Berlin THF to London Heathrow, but two separate airlines which flew nonstop (yes) schedules from East Berlin Schonefeld to London Heathrow. Which ones were they ? Bonus mark for the aircraft type.

LOT and Aeroflot? Possibly Tu-124?

LOT is one of them. Neither flight used the Tu-124.