Catalina affair The Catalina affair ( ) was a military confrontation and Cold War - era diplomatic crisis in June 1952 , in which Soviet 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 was rescued . 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 was saved . The Soviet Union publicly denied involvement until its dissolution in 1991 . Both aircraft were located in 2003 , and the DC - 3 was salvaged . Aircraft and crew . DC - 3 . The first aircraft involved was a Swedish Air Force Douglas DC - 3A - 360 Skytrain , a military transport derivative of the DC - 3 known in Swedish service as Tp 79 . It carried the serial number 79001 . In the media coverage following the event , it became known simply as " the DC - 3 . " The aircraft was manufactured in 1943 with original US serial number 42 - 5694 , and was delivered to USAAF 15th Troop Carrier Squadron ( 61st Troop Carrier Group ) . It saw action in northern Africa before being stationed at RAF Barkston Heath . It was flown on February 5 , 1946 , from Orly Air Base via Hanau Army Airfield to Bromma and was registered as SE - APZ on May 18 , 1946 as a civil aircraft to Skandinaviska Aero AB . On June 13 , 1952 , it disappeared east of the isle of Gotska Sandön while carrying out signals intelligence - gathering operations for the Swedish National Defence Radio Establishment ( FRA ) . The aircraft was lost with its entire crew of eight in the incident . Three of the eight crew members were military personnel from the Swedish Air Force , and the other five were civilian signals intelligence ( SIGINT ) operators from the National Defence Radio Establishment : Catalina . Three days after the initial incident , on June 16 , 1952 , two Consolidated PBY - 5 Catalina flying boats , known in Swedish service as Tp 47s , 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 . Aftermath . The Soviet Union denied shooting down the DC - 3 , but a few days later a life raft with Soviet shell shrapnel was found . In 1956 , while meeting the Swedish Prime Minister Tage Erlander , the Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev admitted that the Soviet Union had shot down the DC - 3 . This information was not released to the public at the time . Sweden maintained for nearly 40 years that the plane was undertaking a navigation training flight . Only after pressure from crewmembers ' families did Swedish authorities confirm that the DC - 3 was equipped with British equipment and had been spying for NATO . In 1991 General Fyodor Sjinkarenko ( ru ) , a colonel in the early Fifties , admitted he had ordered the DC - 3 shot down in 1952 by scrambling a MiG - 15 bis to intercept it . Recovery . On June 10 , 2003 , airline captain Anders Jallai and historian Carl Douglas with the Swedish company Marin Mätteknik AB found the remains of the downed DC - 3 by using sonar at depth . Some time later the Catalina was also found , east of the official splashdown point . After 52 years , the remains of the DC - 3 were lifted to the surface on March 19 , 2004 by freezing the wreck with some of sediments . The wreck was transferred to Muskö naval base for investigation and preservation , and was finally put on display at Swedish Air Force Museum , Linköping on May 13 , 2009 . A 1 : 12 scale model of 79001 was loaned to Air Force Museum on May 5 , 2009 . Conclusion . Bullet holes on 79001 showed that the DC - 3 was shot down by a MiG - 15bis fighter . The exact splashdown time was also determined , as one of the clocks in the cockpit had stopped at 11 : 28 : 40 CET . To this date the remains of four of the eight - man crew have been found and positively identified .