The Catalina affair
Created | Updated Aug 20, 2002
Prologue
On the 13th of june 1952 an unarmed Swedish radio surveilence plane of type DC-3 disappeared over international water in the Baltic sea.
Patrols for the lost DC-3 began immediately both by sea and by air with two sea rescue planes by type Catalina, these were both unarmed.
The Attack
On june 13th because of bad weather, one of the two Catalinas accidentaly entered Soviet territory at Dagö which was notified to the Soviet authorities.
On the 16th of june one of the Catalinas was attacked by two soviet MIG-15 over international water about 25 distance minutes north-west of Dagö.
They were persued to the west under continued firing and was finally forced to land.
Course of Events
At 04:09 the Catalina transmitted:"Feigned attack by two MiG-planes", and two minutes later:"We are being fired upon with tracers, 20 mm. It's hitting to the right".
At 04:15 the Swedish Air Command received the message:"I have been fired upon and hit several times".
Before the unarmed Swedish plane was forced to make an emergency landing the Soviet planes had made 7 attack runs in which they had fired.
Under the first two attacks the Swedish plane had taken no hits.
Under the third the fuselage was hit by rikoshettes from the water surface and the next run hit the left wing.
The following attack came straight from behind and damaged the elevator.
The sixth attack damaged the left engine and the seventh and final attack hit the cockpit and wounded the pilot and the navigator.
The wounded pilot managed to land near a westgerman ship; the Münsterland.
While the life boats were being lowered into the water the two MiG's made yet another feigned attack, but did not fire.
After 10 minutes the damaged plane sunk.
Then What?
Once the Soviet planes had disappeared the crew was taken onboard the ship and went to Hangö where they were treated and then flown home by the Swedish air force.
The Swedish protests after the incident were rejected by category by the Soviet authorities which even claimed that the unarmed Swedish plane had opened fire first at the soviet fighters.
In later years, the Russians have admitted responsibility to the attack on the Swedish rescue plane.
What happened to the DC-3 and there crew is still unknown.
