The World War II mystery that arose after a Finnish airliner was shot down by Soviet bombers over the Baltic Sea appears to have finally been solved more than 80 years later.
The plane was carrying American and French diplomatic envoys when it crashed in June 1940, just days before Moscow annexed the Baltic states. All nine people on board the plane died, including two Finnish crew members and seven passengers (one American diplomat, two French, two German, one Swedish, and two Estonian Finns).
An Estonian diving and rescue team said this week it had discovered well-preserved parts and wreckage from a Junkers Ju 52 plane operated by Finnish airline Aero (now Finnair). The fossil was discovered in 70 meters (230 feet) of water on a small island called Keri near Estonia’s capital Tallinn.
“We basically started from scratch. “We took a completely different approach to the search.” Kaido Peremees, spokesman for Estonian diving and underwater survey company Tuukritoode OU, explained why the group was successful in finding the plane’s remains.
The shooting down of the civilian plane Kaleva, flying from Tallinn to Helsinki, occurred on June 14, 1940. This was just three months after Finland signed a peace treaty with Moscow following the Winter War of 1939-40.
News of the plane’s fate sparked disbelief and anger among authorities in Helsinki, who were informed that it had been shot down by two Soviet DB-3 bombers 10 minutes after takeoff from Tallinn’s Ulemiste Airport.
“It is unique for a passenger plane to be shot down during a routine flight in peacetime,” said Carl-Fredrik Geust, a Finnish aviation historian who has been investigating the Kaleva incident since the 1980s.
Finland officially remained silent for many years about the details of the aircraft’s destruction and, not wanting to provoke Moscow, publicly said that a “mysterious crash” had occurred over the Baltic Sea.
Although well-documented through books, research and TV documentaries, the 84-year-old mystery has intrigued Finns. The incident is an integral part of the Nordic country’s complex World War II history and highlights its difficult relationship with Moscow.
But perhaps more importantly, the downing of the plane occurred at a critical time when Joseph Stalin’s Soviet Union was preparing to annex the Baltic states. This sealed the fate of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania for half a century before they eventually recovered. Independence in 1991.
Recovery of the Soviet Submarine
The Soviet Union occupied Estonia on June 17, 1940, and Kaleva’s ill-fated journey was to be her last flight out of Tallinn, although the Soviet Union had already begun enforcing a strict transport ban around the Estonian capital.
American diplomat Henry W. Antheil Jr., 27, was also on board when the plane crashed. He was rushing a government mission to evacuate sensitive diplomatic pouches from the U.S. embassies in Tallinn and Riga, Latvia, as it became clear that Moscow was preparing to swallow up the small Baltic states.
Kaleva was carrying 227 kg (500 pounds) of diplomatic mail, including Antheil’s pouches and items received from two French diplomatic envoys, identified as Paul Longuet and Frederic Marty.
Estonian fishermen and lighthouse operators in Keri reported to Finnish media decades after the plane crashed that a Soviet submarine had surfaced near the crash site in Kaleva, containing pouches of documents collected by fishermen at the scene. Dani said the wreckage had been recovered.
This led to conspiracy theories about the pouch’s contents and Moscow’s decision to shoot down the plane. It remains unclear exactly why the Soviet Union decided to shoot down a Finnish civilian airliner during peacetime.
“Over the past few years, we’ve heard a lot of speculation about the plane’s cargo,” Geust said. “What was the plane carrying? Many suggest that Moscow wanted to prevent sensitive material and documents leaving Estonia.”
But he said it may have simply been a “mistake” by the Soviet bomber pilots.
Various attempts to find Kaleva have been recorded since Estonia regained its independence more than 30 years ago. But none of them succeeded.
“The wreckage was in pieces and the seabed was very rough with rocks, valleys and hills. It’s very easy to miss.” Small parts and debris from the aircraft, Peremees said. “Of course, technology has advanced a lot over time. As always, you can have good skills, but you can also be unlucky.”
A new video filmed by an underwater robot from the Peremees company showed a clear image of Junkers’ three landing gear engines, one of the motors and one of the wing parts.
Jaakko Schildt, Finnair’s chief operating officer, described Kaleva’s crash as “a tragic and very sad event for the young airline.”
“Finding the wreckage of the Kaleva is a way to bring closure to this problem, even if it doesn’t bring back the lives of our lost customers and crew,” Schildt said. “The interest in finding Kaleva in the Baltic Sea speaks to the significance of this tragic event in the aviation history of our region.”
