Unearthing history: Warplanes resurface in Murmansk lakes
In the Murmansk region of Russia, aircraft wrecks from World War II are regularly discovered. Numerous photographs show machines of German, Soviet, and American origin recovered from the water. One of these aeroplanes was discovered almost six decades after the crash. However, it is not the oldest object found in that area.
It was 19 November 1944. A young but well-trained Lieutenant Ivan Baranovsky took off in a Bell P-39 Airacobra from the northern edges of the USSR. The aircraft he piloted was just one of thousands delivered to the Soviets by the USA under the Lend-Lease programme. Although the exact reasons remain unknown to this day, Baranovsky landed on the frozen Mart-Yavr Lake in the Murmansk region.
Resting at the bottom for years
Almost sixty years later, in July 2004, a local fisherman spotted part of the aeroplane's tail on the lake's surface. When authorities retrieved the wreck, a maintenance log and the pilot's remains were found in the cockpit. Years later, Baranovsky was honourably buried in the Alley of Glory in Murmansk.
The fighter he flew was first sent to Moscow and then received an export licence and was transferred to Jim Pearce’s workshop in West Sussex, England, where it underwent thorough restoration. Ultimately, the restored aircraft was purchased by the American Niagara Aerospace Museum in Buffalo, New York, where it can still be seen today.
The aircraft graveyard in Russia
The Bell P-39 Airacobra is not the only World War II plane discovered years later in the Murmansk area. In July 2021, members of the Russian Navy’s Northern Fleet, along with local and military investigators, retrieved a Soviet biplane from the lakebed that had crashed in October 1941. The remains of the pilot, identified as Lieutenant Mikhail Alexandrovich Golunov, were also found in the aeroplane.
In the Murmansk region, wrecks of other planes have also been encountered such as the Soviet I-16, Il-2, MiG-3, and Pe-2, the American Curtiss P-40 Warhawk, the British Handley Page Hampden, and the German Heinkel He 111, Junkers Ju 88, and Messerschmitt Bf 109.
It remains a mystery how many such machines are still hidden in the lakes and forests of Murmansk, but similar discoveries may also occur in other parts of Russia. It's worth familiarising oneself with previous publications on this topic, including the story of the German Focke-Wulf Fw 190 fighter discovered over forty years later in a forest near Petersburg.
