page_title: Catalina affair
section_title: Catalina
hierarchical_section_title: Catalina affair / Aircraft and crew / Catalina
caption_attribution_description: Tp 47 at Flygvapenmuseum
context_page_description: The Catalina affair was a military confrontation and Cold War-era diplomatic crisis in June 1952, in which Soviet Air Force fighter jets shot down two Swedish aircraft over international waters in the Baltic Sea.
  The first aircraft to be shot down was an unarmed Swedish Air Force Tp 79, a derivative of the Douglas DC-3, carrying out radio and radar signals intelligence-gathering for the National Defence Radio Establishment. None of the crew of eight survived.
  The second aircraft to be shot down was a Swedish Air Force Tp 47, a Catalina flying boat, involved in the search and rescue operation for the missing DC-3. The Catalina's crew of five were saved.
  The Soviet Union publicly denied involvement until its dissolution in 1991. Both aircraft were located in 2003, and the DC-3 was salvaged.
context_section_description: Three days after the initial incident, on 16 June 1952, two Consolidated PBY-5 Catalina flying boats, known in Swedish service as Tp 47, searched for the DC-3 north of Estonia. One of the aircraft, carrying airframe serial no. 47002, was shot down by Soviet aircraft, but the crew of five ditched near the West German freighter Münsterland and were rescued.
caption: Tp 47 Canso (Catalina) at the Swedish Air Force Museum.
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