Divers find remains of Finnish WWII plane shot down by Soviets

Salvage team in Estonia says it located well-preserved parts and debris from the Junkers Ju 52 plane shot down in 1940.

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 80 years 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 it 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 70 metres (230 feet).

“Basically, we started from scratch. We took a whole different approach to the search,” said Kaido Peremees, spokesperson for the Estonian diving and underwater survey company Tuukritoode OU, explained the group’s success in finding the plane’s remains.

The downing of the civilian plane, named Kaleva, en route from Tallinn to Helsinki happened on June 14, 1940 — just three months after Finland signed a peace treaty with Moscow following the 1939-40 Winter War.