TALLINN, Jun 04, BNS – A US ship was not able to locate the wreck of a Finnish airplane shot down by Soviet military aircraft over the Gulf of Finland in June 1940 during a search that lasted from Friday till Wednesday morning.
USNS Pathfinder, a US Oceanographic Survey Ship in the Military Sealift Command Special Mission Ships Program, conducted a thorough search using specific coordinates for the area where Estonian and Finnish researchers believed the missing aircraft, the Kaleva, might be, but was not able to locate it, Eric A. Johnson, spokesman for the US embassy in Tallinn, said.
“There is no indication of a large human made object in this area. I have a high level of confidence that the plane is not there,” said Martin Ammond, Senior NAVOCEANO Representative.
Johnson at the same time expressed confidence the Kaleva would someday be found. The present search area can be ruled out in future searches, he added.
The Pathfinder was looking for the missing plane in an area located 16 nautical miles northwest of Keri Island.
According to Johnson, the crew was working 24 hours a day from Friday, May 30 until Wednesday morning and four to six experts reviewed the recorded data at the same time. All three AUVs (Autonomous Underwater Vehicle) were used during the search.
One of the AUVs, the Remus 6000, spent 25 hours under water on one mission — this is longest ever mission time for the Remus 6000. Also the Remus 100 and Remus 6000 were launched for a mission at the same time — the first time they have ever worked together.
The three AUVs spent a total of 50 hours under water, searching an area of 11 square nautical miles with their high-resolution sidescan sonars, the spokesman said. The 10 gigabits of data that they gathered has been turned over to the Estonian Navy.
The depth of the water in the search area ranged from 32 meters to 118 meters. The area was very glacial and rocky, some large rocks were as big as 5 meters tall and 20 meters long.
The Kaleva was shot down by Soviet military aircraft near Keri Island about ten minutes after taking off from Tallinn on June 14, 1940. The incident took place on the first day of an anti-Estonian blockade the Soviet Union established in World War Two.
The wreck of the plane and the nine persons on board it — two crew and seven passengers — have not been found until the present.
One of the passengers was Henry W. Antheil, a US diplomatic courier.
This January Estonian Defense Minister Jaak Aaviksoo sent a letter to US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, asking a US naval survey ship to conduct a search for the missing plane.
Tallinn newsroom, +372 610 8814, [email protected]
