Kaleva (airplane)

Aero Flight 1631
Kaleva at Malmi Airport in the late 1930s.
Shootdown
Date14 June 1940
SummaryAirliner shootdown
Sitenear Keri Lighthouse, Gulf of Finland
59°47′1″N 25°01′6″E / 59.78361°N 25.01833°E / 59.78361; 25.01833
Aircraft
Aircraft typeJunkers Ju 52
Aircraft nameKaleva
OperatorAero O/Y
RegistrationOH-ALL
Flight originÜlemiste Airport
DestinationHelsinki-Malmi Airport
Occupants9
Passengers7
Crew2
Fatalities9
Survivors0

Kaleva was a civilian Junkers Ju 52 passenger and transport airplane belonging to the Finnish carrier Aero O/Y. On 14 June 1940, as Flight 1631 from Tallinn in Estonia to Helsinki in Finland, it was shot down over the Gulf of Finland by two combat aircraft of the Soviet military, killing all nine on board.[1][2] The incident occurred during the Interim Peace between the Soviet Union and Finland, and at the outset of the Soviet occupation of Estonia. Kaleva was the second civilian passenger airplane ever to be attacked midair, and the first airliner in history to be shot down in flight, by hostile aircraft.

  1. ^ Virtualpilots - Tapauskaleva. Retrieved on 30-1-2007.
  2. ^ Niku, Risto (2007). Kalevan kuolemanlento (in Finnish). Jyväskylä: Edita. p. 11. ISBN 978-951-37-4965-1.