Kaleva shot down 86 years ago
Soviet warplanes shot down Aero’s (present-day Finnair) ”Kaleva” airliner over the Gulf of Finland on 14th June, 1940; making Sunday 14th, 2026 the 86th anniversary of the atrocity.
If you wish to revisit the incident as well as the occurrences preceding and following it, here are some pointers:
Wikipedia gives a pretty good rundown: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaleva_(airplane)
Sylvia Wrigley provides a more detailed description in her blogpost: https://fearoflanding.com/history/kaleva-shot-down-by-long-range-bombers/
There are a number of videos describing the event:
The ‘Last flight of Kaleva - Aero airliner OH-ALL shootdown 14.6.1940 by Soviet Air Force' video is a good 'executive summary' of the incident. The video produced in 2011 is technically somewhat primitive, but gives a good timeline of the events. The Kaleva crashes into the sea at about 4:20, then there’s footage about the search flight by a Finnish Air Force Brewster fighter and towards the end some Finnish newspaper clippings and further information. All subtitles are in Finnish: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j0LtBssISio
This 17 minute ’The Kaleva Incident (English subtitles)’ video from September 2024 also includes discussion about the political/military context: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MqJwb3846Gc&t=2s
This video ’Sota-ajan värifilmit...’ has nice footage of the Kaleva from 1:07 to 1:42. (The name of the video mistakenly says 1941, should be 1940. The beginning of the video shows people from Eastern Carelia fleeing the Soviet attack. The end shows scenes of wartime Helsinki.): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1tTMrvtZcxw
My blogpost ‘How the Kaleva was found - 84 years after Russian bombers shot it down’ of January 6th recounts how an Estonian diving enterprise found (parts of) the Kaleva wreckage in Summer 2024 and includes a link to a video showing the Kaleva’s wing, landing gear and engine on the seabed.
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