How the Kaleva was found - 84 years after Russian bombers shot it down

Photograph: Henri Hoffren / Suomen Ilmailumuseo (Finnish Aviation Museum)

Soviet bombers shot the Kaleva down on 14th June 1940. The airliner was on its daily scheduled run from Tallinn to Helsinki. Everyone on board died in the crash into the sea near Keri lighthouse island off the Estonian coast. The reason for the barbarous attack has never been fully resolved.

Over the years numerous attempts have been made to find the wreck of the Kaleva. As long as these were unsuccessful, the theory that the Soviets could have lifted the wreck remained a possibility. The theory of the whole wreck having been lifted was finally dispelled in June 2024, when the Kaleva wreckage – or at least major components of it - was finally located on the seabed.

Up to 1991, during the Soviet rule of Estonia, attempts to locate the Kaleva’s remains were not encouraged. This situation kept the rumour of the Soviets having dug up the wreckage, or parts thereof, alive. In the 90’s and during the current millennium there have been several attempts to find the wreck by Eesti Meremuseeum (Estonian Naval Museum) and others.

Kaido Peremee, the owner of diving enterprise Tuukritööde oü, had the Estonian museum authority’s permission for searching the Kaleva’s remains and in the Summer of 2024 he managed to locate numerous parts of the Kaleva on the seabed north of Keri at a depth between 71 and 76 metres. The parts had spread to cover an area of about a hectare and the biggest assemblies found were a wing, one engine and one landing gear.

When conducting his search, Peremee made the assumption that the aircraft would have disintegrated on impact with the sea. One reason for earlier searches failing may have been the rockiness and unevenness of the bottom of the sea. The combination of the hypothesis of the plane having broken up and improvements in sonar technology were probably crucial in achieving this breakthrough discovery.

As only parts of the plane were found, it is still possible that some other parts of the wreckage could have been lifted by the Soviets at some point.

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