Into Thin Air

Shot down by a MiG over the Baltic, a Swedish Air Force C-47 vanished. Linnéa Holmberg Wensby describes the challenging project to salvage and preserve it

The conserved remains of ‘Hugin’ at the Swedish Air Force Museum.
ALL VIA FLYGVAPENMUSEUM UNLESS NOTED

There was no response. The radio was silent and the radar showed nothing. A Swedish Air Force Douglas C-47 flying over the eastern Baltic Sea with eight men on board had vanished. Three days later a Consolidated Catalina searching for the missing aircraft was shot down by a Soviet fighter. Its crew members were rescued from the cold, inhospitable waters. Families and friends of the C-47’s crew were in shock – which extended to the entire nation. In was June 1952 and Sweden’s biggest Cold War mystery had begun.

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