Divers find remains of Finnish WWII plane

Quote :

The World War II mystery of what happened to a Finnish passenger plane after it was shot down over the Baltic Sea by Soviet bombers appears to finally be solved more than eight decades later.

The plane was carrying American and French diplomatic couriers in June 1940 when it was downed just days before Moscow annexed the Baltic states. All nine people on board the plane were killed, including the two-member Finnish crew and the seven passengers — an American diplomat, two French, two Germans, a Swede and a dual Estonian-Finnish national.

A diving and salvage team in Estonia said this week that it had located well-preserved parts and debris from the Junkers Ju 52 plane operated by Finnish airline Aero, which is now Finnair. It was found off the tiny island of Keri near Estonia’s capital, Tallinn, at a depth of around 70 meters (230 feet).

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Something not mentioned in this article, but reported in Estonian media, is that the entire fuselage is missing. One of the divers who helped to locate the wreck believes that at some point, either shortly after WW2 or sometime in the 50s, the soviets returned to the site and removed that part of the aircraft.

Any explanation why they did that?

Can't really guess what they were looking for. They might've just picked it up while salvaging various things in the area, I'd imagine lots of things ended up in the bottom of the sea along the war.


A vaguely related fun fact. Few years ago a Finnish WWII fighter downed in Russian lake was brought to a military museum. The fighter was American-made Brewster F2A Buffalo and fought a British-made Hawker Hurricane - ending in a bad tie, both planes went down. (At least the Finnish pilot did survive.)

Consider the absurdity of that fight: Finns, at the time sided with Germany, flying American fighters against Soviets who flew British planes.