Well, this “find” have rich history – this crash site is place of tourists pilgrimage through the years. For example, back in 2011 the group of tourists has taken a hike to Zelyonaya mountain. Apart from the usual tourist occupations, they visited A20 crash site too and made the videos. Other “expeditions” were also in year 2012, 2008, and in earlier years. So, this place is not secret. Besides, this wreck was the object of “hunters for nonferrous metals” thefts for several times.
Today there are only following large parts in site:
Note – these images are in all news issues about Siberian A20 from 2014. But I saw them in some blogs in year 2012 !
As You see, these “parts” are not enough for whole plane restoration. Possibly, there are some much smaller parts and fragments around – but this place is covered with tall grass. And members from 2011 tourists group state, that “plane has been taken away” by unknown people – those tourists seen the traces of tracked vehicles on mountain’s top and slopes in crash site area. I feel sure, these tourists were not aviation specialists, and in their word “plane” they mean “fuselage” only, because of we can see fragment of wing center section and engine nacelle on images above. By the way – the opinion exists, that this A20 crashed already after War, in about 1947.
Thus, this is common “ghostly, vanishing find”. Eastern part of Russia have a lot of such crash sites. For example, only one search group from Vladivostok city, which operates in Primorskiy Kray (large region near Pacific coast of Russia), found more 50 plane crash sites from June 2007, when this group was formed. All these planes are from different eras – pre-War, WW2 and post-War. Sadly, only very small part of them could to be restored – very often those searchers find only very small fragments or parts; or plane and it’s units are highly damaged during crash and during decades past.
And note – this is only one region; Russia have many of such regions – with high mountains, wide and deep rivers/lakes, dense forests – in it’s eastern part.
For present days many aircraft’s wrecks are discovered – but more wrecks could to be discovered in future.
Hello, Steve !
If Your supposition, that plane found is Il-2 – well, possible, this is right. I am not large expert in Il-2, but, if we mean Il-2 – this plane has the parts, which looked very similar to Your parts.
My conclusions are:
1) This is two-seater (pilot + rear gunner) Il-2, not single-seater (pilot only).
2) The rectangular plate is one of wing hatches – from upper surface of main wing, or from it’s lower surface. See my image and read the text on it; the hatches, outlined in red, looks very similar to Your part:
3) The circular part is the information plate from socket for airfield electic supply. This socket was used for electric power supply of plane devices, when the plane was on the ground. The text on this plate means in Russian: “The socket for airfield supply”. See my image and read the text on it – Your part is situated on port side of fuselage behind cockpit and indicated by thin lines. Also see enlarged view of this part – Your circular plate indicated by arrow:
But, I think, other plane types could to have same (or similar at least) parts.
Dear Martin !
I have sent You 2 private messages via LAAHS Forum, but You did not answer. So, I answer You here:
1) Yes, the Island Shimushiru (in Japanese spelling), or Simushir (in Russian spelling) is situated in the chain of Kurile Islands. See the Kurile map (note the Islands, circled on map with red colour):
First of all You need to read the following article, with special attention to geographical names:
http://newspapers.nl.sg/Digitised/Article/straitstimes19310608-1.2.136.aspx – check the “I agree to the terms and conditions” box and click “I agree” button to read the “Japan’s lone Eagle forced down” article.
2) Simushir Island have not so many bays to mix the bay’s names. Highly detailed map from year 1984 shows only 8 large bays with own name each. This is possibly, there are some smaller unnamed bays on Simushir – but I do not know about this fact. The second largest bay after Milna Bay (“Zaliv Milna” in Russian) is “Bukhta Broutona” (in Russian). This bay was named in Honour of W. R. Broughton, British officer and explorer. See the article about him here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Robert_Broughton
See the Simushir map (note the red arrow to Bay of Broughton):
So, Russian name “Bukhta Broutona” means exactly “Bay of Broughton” (or “Broughton Bay”, if You want). This bay is very good suitable for naval plane’s landings – it have length of 5,7 kilometers and depth over 200 meters; the bay is surrounded with earth from each side, excluding bay entrance (it have the width about 250 meters).
3) I feel sure, in cases with Seiji Yoshihara and C. Lindberg we have usual error in geographic names, that occurred during transmission of the information to press. Even today, despite of high progress in devices for the communications, we can see many errors in names of people, towns, villages, cities and other places in books, magazines, radio reports, articles, etc. And at that far-far time all communications were in the beginning of progress. And second – this is obviously, the authors of all those articles obtain the information from one or two sources, and thus the error is the same everywhere.
4) We can check exactly the statement “Muroton Bay is Bay of Broughton in reality” !
See the link:
http://www.newspapers.com/newspage/17033911/
You need one phrase from there:
“Finally, the fliers brought their plane safely down on the lee of the rockbounc Island of Ketoi, 15 miles from Muroton bay“.
Looking at map, we can see small Island to the northeast of Simushir Island – this is Ketoi Island. When I have measured the direct distance between center of Bay of Broughton and closest point of Ketoi Island, I got the result of 25,2 kilometers, or 13,6 naval miles. This is about 14 miles, and this is very close to “15 miles” in article.
See the map of Simushir and Ketoi Islands with my marks on it:
On this basis I conclude, that “Muroton Bay” in articles is Bay of Broughton exactly in real life.
Thank You, Martin, for such very interesting question for amazing research !
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