Catalina affair
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 The DC-3 (Tp 79 Hugin with Swedish Air Force s/n 79001) at F 8 Barkarby in 1951. |
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| Incident summary | |
|---|---|
| Date | 13 June 1952 |
| Type | Shot down |
| Site | east of isle Gotska Sandön 58°23.522′N 20°17.460′E / 58.392033°N 20.291°ECoordinates: 58°23.522′N 20°17.460′E / 58.392033°N 20.291°E[2] |
| Crew | 8 |
| Fatalities | 8 |
| Aircraft type | DC-3A-360 Skytrain |
| Aircraft name | Hugin[3][4] |
| Operator | Swedish Air Force |
| Flight origin | Stockholm-Bromma Airport, Sweden |
| Destination | Stockholm-Bromma Airport, Sweden |
 The Swedish Catalina, that was shot by the Soviets in 1952 while searching for the missing DC-3 |
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| Incident summary | |
|---|---|
| Date | 16 June 1952 |
| Type | Shot down |
| Site | east of isle Gotska Sandön |
| Crew | 5 |
| Fatalities | 0 |
| Survivors | 5 |
| Aircraft type | PBY-5 Catalina |
| Operator | Swedish Air Force |
| Tail number | 19520616-1 |
| Flight origin | F 2 Hägernäs air base[5] |
| Destination | F 2 Hägernäs air base[6] |
The Catalina affair was an incident on June 13, 1952, when a Swedish military Douglas DC-3A-360 Skytrain[2] flying over the Baltic Sea carrying out signals intelligence gathering operations for the Swedish National Defence Radio Establishment (FRA), disappeared east of the isle of Gotska Sandön.[7]
Three days later, two Swedish military Catalina flying boats searched for the DC-3 north of Estonia. One of the planes was shot down by Soviet warplanes but the crew ditched near the West German freighter Münsterland and were rescued.[8][9][10]
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[edit] Aircraft and crew
The Douglas DC-3A-360 Skytrain lost on June 13, 1952, was a military transport derivative of DC-3, known in Swedish service as Tp 79, carried serial number 79001. The aircraft was manufactured in 1943 with original US serial number 42-5694 and delivered to USAAF 15th Troop Carrier Squadron (61st Troop Carrier Group). It saw action in northern Africa before being stationed at RAF Barkston Heath. It was flown February 5, 1946, from Orly Air Base via Hanau Army Airfield to Bromma and was registered as SE-APZ May 18, 1946 as a civilian aircraft to Skandinaviska Aero AB.[11][12]
The aircraft was lost with its entire crew of eight in the incident. Three of the eight crew members were military personnel from the Swedish Air Force and the other five were civilian signals intelligence (SIGINT) operators from the National Defence Radio Establishment:[13]
- Alvar Älmeberg (pilot)
- Gösta Blad (navigator/radio operator)
- Herbert Mattson (flight engineer)
- Einar Jonsson (SIGINT group leader)
- Ivar Svensson (SIGINT operator)
- Erik Carlsson (SIGINT operator)
- Bengt Book (SIGINT operator)
- Börge Nilsson (SIGINT operator)
The aircraft shot down on the rescue mission on June 16, 1952, was a Consolidated PBY-5 Catalina, known in Swedish service as Tp 47, carrying airframe serial 47002.[7] All five crew members were rescued.
[edit] Aftermath
The USSR denied shooting down the DC-3, but a few days later a life raft with Soviet shell shrapnel was found. In 1956, while meeting the Swedish Prime Minister Tage Erlander, the Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev admitted that the Soviet Union had shot down the DC-3. This information was not released to the public at the time.
Sweden maintained for nearly 40 years that the plane was undertaking a navigation training flight.[14] Only after pressure from crew member families,[15] Swedish authorities did confirm that the DC-3 was equipped with British equipment and it had been spying for NATO.[16]
In 1991, General Sjinkarenko admitted he had ordered the DC-3 shot down in 1952 by scrambling a MiG-15bis to intercept it.[9][17]
[edit] Recovery
On June 10, 2003, a Swedish company Marin Mätteknik AB found the remains of the downed DC-3 by using sonar at 126 m (413 ft) depth.[2][16][18][19] Some time later the Catalina was also found, 22 kilometres (14 mi) east of the official splashdown point.
After 52 years, the remains of the DC-3 were lifted to the surface on March 19, 2004 by freezing the wreck with some 200 m3 (7,100 cu ft) of sediments.[20] The wreck was transferred to Muskö naval base for investigation and preservation, and was finally put on display at Swedish Air Force Museum, Linköping on May 13, 2009.[21] A 1:12 scale model of 79001 was loaned to Air Force Museum on May 5, 2009.[22]
[edit] Conclusion
Bullet holes on 79001 showed that the DC-3 was shot down by a MiG-15bis fighter. The exact splash down time was also determined, as one of the clocks in the cockpit had stopped at 11:28:40 CET.[23] To this date the remains of four of the eight-man crew have been found and positively identified.[24]
[edit] See also
[edit] Notes
- ^ Magnusson, p. 10
- ^ a b c Magnusson 2007, p. 9
- ^ Magnusson 2007, p. 133, p. 202
- ^ The sister aircraft 79002 was called Munin. Magnusson 2007, p. 47
- ^ Magnusson 2007, p. 33
- ^ All Catalinas scrambled to search mission started from F 2, assume destination to be same
- ^ a b Magnusson 2007, p. 11
- ^ "The Catalina Affair". BBC. http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A790049. Retrieved 2010-10-11.
- ^ a b "A Troubled Time". Swedish Air Force Museum. http://www.flygvapenmuseum.se/en/See-and-Do/Exhibitions/Acts-of-Secrecy/Background/. Retrieved 2010-11-10.
- ^ "Accident description". Aviation Safety Network. http://aviation-safety.net/database/record.php?id=19520616-1. Retrieved 2010-11-11.
- ^ Magnusson 2007, p. 9 and 46
- ^ "RZJets database entry". Rzjets. http://www.rzjets.net/aircraft/?reg=224538. Retrieved 2010-11-11.
- ^ Magnusson 2007, pp. 42-43
- ^ Grisell 2007, p. 3
- ^ Älmeberg, Roger (2008-04-01). "The Swedish DC-3 & The Destiny of its Crew". http://www.raoul-wallenberg.eu/articles/the-swedish-dc-3-the-destiny-of-its-crew/. Retrieved 2011-05-26.
- ^ a b Lovgren, Stefan (2003-10-10). "Cold War Spy Plane Found in Baltic Sea". National Geographic News. pp. 1–2. http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2003/10/1010_031010_swedishspyplane.html. Retrieved 2011-05-26.
- ^ Magnusson 2007, p. 12
- ^ FRA 2003, p. 3
- ^ "Nedskjutna DC 3:an återfunnen [A shot down DC-3 found]" (in Swedish). Stockholm, Sweden: Dagens Nyheter. 2003-06-06. http://www.dn.se/nyheter/sverige/nedskjutna-dc-3an-aterfunnen-1.190197. Retrieved 2010-11-12.
- ^ "Case study: The Catalina Affair". Kiruna, Sweden: FriGeo AB. http://www.frigeo.se/products/object-rescue. Retrieved 2010-11-10.
- ^ "From the Baltic Sea to the Swedish Air Force Museum". Swedish Air Force Museum. http://www.flygvapenmuseum.se/en/See-and-Do/Exhibitions/Acts-of-Secrecy/To-the-museum/. Retrieved 2010-11-10.
- ^ Gunnar Åkerberg. "Modell av Tp 79001 överlämnad till Flygvapenmuseum [Model of Tp 79001 loaned to Air Force Museum]" (in Swedish). Stockholm, Sweden: Östergötlands Flyghistoriska Sällskap. http://www.sffsto.se/ModellavTp79001overlamnadtillFlygvapenmuseum.htm. Retrieved 2010-11-12.
- ^ Magnusson 2007, p. 137
- ^ Holmlund 2008, pp. 5-9
[edit] References
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Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Catalina affair |
- Försvarets radioanstalt (FRA) (2003-09-06) (in Swedish) (PDF). Fpl 79001. Systemrapport FRA-utrustning, Rekonstruktion inför bärgning W342 (sammanfattning) [Report of SIGINT equipment aboard aircraft 79001, reconstruction before salvage W432 (abstract)]. Sweden. http://www.fra.se/bilagor/0222-systemrapport-DC3.pdf. Retrieved 2010-11-11.
- Bengt Grisell et al. (2007) (PDF). The DC-3 - A KTH Project. Stockholm, Sweden: Royal Institute of Technology, Department of Underwater Technology. ISBN 978-91-633-1328-8. http://kth.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:403865/FULLTEXT01. Retrieved 2011-05-26.
- Gunilla Holmlund; Gunilla Wetterling, Tarja Formisto and Riitta Kauppila (2008). "Identification, of four crewmembers of the Douglas DC-3 79001 Hugin by DNA analysis, 52 years post mortem" (PDF). Scandinavian Journal of Forensic Science (Oslo, Norway) 14 (1): 5–9. ISSN 1503-9552. http://www.scandjfs.com/Vol.%2014%20No.%201%202008.pdf. Retrieved 2010-11-10.</ref>
- Magnusson, Christer (2007-05-25) (in Swedish) (PDF). Teknisk utredningsrapport över haveri med Tp 79 nr 001 [Technical report of Tp 79, serial 001 accident]. Stockholm, Sweden: Swedish Armed Forces (Försvarsmakten). http://www.forsvarsmakten.se/upload/dokumentfiler/rapporter/Haverirapport_dc3.pdf. Retrieved 2010-11-11.
