"Raisin bomber" (DC3) makes emergency landing in Berlin

Berlin Tourist Plane Makes Emergency Landing
Berlin tourist plane makes emergency landing, 7 slightly injured

By KIRSTEN GRIESHABER Associated Press Writer
BERLIN June 19, 2010 (AP)

A DC-3 plane carrying 25 tourists made an emergency landing near Berlin's Schoenefeld airport Saturday and seven passengers were slightly injured, a spokesman for the airport said.

Spokesman Ralf Kunkel told The Associated Press that it was not clear why the plane — a so called "raisin bomber" that takes tourists on tours commemorating the post-World War II Berlin Airlift — had to make the emergency landing immediately after takeoff Saturday afternoon.

"At this point we don't know what caused the emergency landing. All I can say is that the plane landed on a field right after it took off," Kunkel said. He did not have details about the nationality of the passengers. He said all 25 passengers and three crew members left the plane under their own power.

Schoenefeld airport was closed for 15 minutes. The accident is being investigated by the German Federal Bureau of Aircraft Accident Investigation, Kunkel said.

"Raisin bomber" tours are offered on a regular basis by Air Service Berlin, a company that specializes in plane, helicopter and hot air balloon tours for tourists in Berlin and other German cities.

Phone calls to the company were not immediately answered. On its Web site, the company says it uses original 1944-built planes for the 35-minute-flight over Berlin.

The Berlin airlift, which began June 26, 1948, was an ambitious plan to feed and supply West Berlin. The Soviets — one of the four occupying powers of a divided Berlin after World War II — had blockaded the city in an attempt to squeeze the U.S., Britain and France out of the enclave, which lay inside Soviet-occupied eastern Germany.

Allied pilots flew 278,000 flights to Berlin over 15 months, carrying about 2.3 million tons of food, coal, medicine and other supplies.

The planes dropped the food and other supplies onto the city, which is why Berliners dubbed them "raisin bombers."