Catalina affair

Flight 27^[1]

Tp 79 Hugin at F 8 Barkarby in 1951
Incident
Date	13 June 1952
Summary	Shot down
Site	East of Gotska Sandön 58°23′31″N 20°17′28″E / 58.39194°N 20.29111°E / 58.39194; 20.29111[2]
Aircraft
Aircraft type	DC-3A-360 Skytrain
Aircraft name	Hugin[3][4]
Operator	Swedish Air Force
Flight origin	Stockholm Bromma Airport Stockholm, Sweden
Destination	Stockholm Bromma Airport
Passengers	0
Crew	8
Fatalities	8
Survivors	0

The Catalina shot down by Soviet forces while searching for the missing Hugin
Incident
Date	16 June 1952
Summary	Shot down
Site	East of Gotska Sandön
Aircraft
Aircraft type	PBY-5 Catalina
Operator	Swedish Air Force
Flight origin	F 2 Hägernäs[5] near Stockholm, Sweden
Destination	F 2 Hägernäs[6]
Passengers	0
Crew	7
Fatalities	0

The Catalina affair (Swedish: Catalinaaffären) 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 (Försvarets radioanstalt, FRA). 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 seven were saved.

The Soviet Union publicly denied involvement until its dissolution in 1991. Both aircraft were located in 2003; the DC-3 was salvaged.