Has a missing pre-WW2 Soviet bomber been found?

It's been reported that Russia is searching for the remains of a Bolkhovitinov DB-A aircraft that attempted to fly non-stop from Moscow to Fairbanks, Alaska in 1937.  It disappeared near Alaska and was not located at the time, despite an extensive search for it and its crew.

The 1930's saw many Soviet attempts at aviation records.  Two long-range aircraft made it from the Soviet Union to the USA, both Tupolev ANT-25's.

One flew from Moscow to Vancouver, Washington, and the other from Moscow to San Jacinto, California.  The latter aircraft is shown below after arrival, followed by a film report about its journey from a later newsreel.

There have been claims that the Tupolev ANT-25 was no more than a rebuilt or modified French Dewoitine D.33 aircraft (pictured on the ground here, and flying here), and that the aircraft's alleged record flights were hoaxes.  However, despite obvious visual similarities between the two aircraft, there's no solid evidence to suggest that their record flights to the USA were in any way staged or falsified.  Furthermore, the ANT-25's engineering and construction can be easily confirmed as Soviet from contemporary sources - see, for example, this article, which includes many photographs.  Also, ten ANT-25 bomber aircraft were inducted into the Soviet air force, although they weren't very successful as combat aircraft.  This would tend to argue in favor of Soviet construction, and against the record-setting aircraft being two modified French planes.

Two replica ANT-25's are in Russian museums to this day.  Here's one in the famous Central Air Force Museum in Monino, near Moscow.

Stalin, head of the Soviet Union at the time, wanted aviation records to be broken as an expression of Soviet and Communist technological superiority.  Those who succeeded were rewarded.  Those who failed were consigned to the dustbin of history (sometimes all too literally).

The Bolkhovitinov DB-A's genesis is curiously similar to the early history of Boeing's B-17 Flying Fortress, except that only 14 of the former were produced compared to almost 13,000 of the latter.  Both aircraft were designed to take advantage of the latest technologies available in their day:  stressed skin all-metal construction, cowled (i.e. enclosed) engines, fuel tanks in the wings, retractable undercarriage, etc.

The DB-A was tested with skis as well as wheels, to see whether it could operate from unprepared airfields during the long and severe Russian winters.  It reportedly performed well.

The DB-A first flew in 1935, and before its journey to Alaska had broken several records in its class.  A detailed account of its Alaska flight may be found here.  It makes interesting reading.  To my surprise, YouTube has this video clip showing the DB-A during test flights in the Soviet Union, and departing on its abortive flight to Alaska.

I was also fascinated to learn that someone may already have found the missing aircraft.  The Seward City News reported yesterday:

Lucky Wilson, a longtime Alaska pilot and Healy Helicopter warrant officer in Vietnam, who owns the aircraft storage hanger at Seward Airport, says he knows where the famed Russian bomber plane, missing since August of 1937 can be found. He saw the historic bomber in 1978, a couple of miles east of Oliktok Point off Alaska’s Arctic Ocean Coast while overflying the area on a clear, sunny day. It was shining through the shallow water in which it was submerged. He could tell it was Russian by its curved wing tip, and its engine pod. American bombers have rounded wing tips, Wilson said.

The bomber is directly to the east of the early warning Dew Station at Oliktok Point, and when he saw it, it was submerged under less than 20 feet of water, he said. Wilson could clearly see the plane because the water was so clear, he said. It was still shiny-red.

He informed the men working at the Oliktok station, and has since seen it during the 80s, while flying out of Prudhoe Bay for a private North Slope contractor.

There's more at the link.

If Mr. Wilson's discovery proves to be the missing plane, it'll be the end of a search that's lasted for over three-quarters of a century.  The aviators of those earlier years were certainly brave men, setting out in such primitive aircraft to attempt feats of endurance flying that were unprecedented.  They frequently failed . . . but their attempts paved the way for the aerial armadas of World War II, and the explosion in commercial aviation that followed.  The DB-A has a small, but honored place in that history.

Peter