#ARCTIC. #SIBERIA. THIS IS TAIMYR. The international historical and geographical search project Levanevsky’s Aircraft: Legend Return has started in Russia. This was discussed at the forum Heroes of the Arctic: History and Modernity, which was held in Moscow by the Project Office for the Development of the Arctic (PORA).
The legendary Soviet pilot, Hero of the Soviet Union Sigismund Levanevsky made several attempts to fly from the USSR to America via the North Pole. The last of them tragically ended on August 13-14, 1937: the plane, along with the crew, went missing in the vast expanses of the Arctic.
The goal of the project is to find confirmation of the landing of the aircraft and to find reliable traces of the long stay of the crew, which would remove all doubts about the place of landing and the nature of the tragedy.
“The expedition has to check the version according to which Levanevsky’s plane changed its route due to lack of fuel and made an emergency landing on the Ward Hunt ice shelf of Ellesmere Island in the Canadian archipelago. This project is a continuation of the long history of searching for the lost aircraft with tail number H-209 since the 1930s”, said PORA expert, president of the Arctica expeditionary center of the Russian Geographical Society, honorary polar explorer Vladimir Chukov (a year ago he came to Taimyr and Norilsk).
The Levanevsky’s Aircraft: Legend Return project involves several key stages: preparation, analytical research work and practical search activities in the localized area of the proposed landing of the aircraft. The working group will include search and rescue specialists, doctors, aviation organizations and authorities representatives, the lost pilots’ relatives.
“The Arctic has always been a region of international cooperation. The polar brotherhood came to rescue of those in trouble, regardless of borders, nationality, citizenship or race. We plan to create the Immortal Expedition portal, which, in addition to this project, will cover the stories of other conquerors of the Arctic”, said Konstantin Dering, Executive Director of PORA.
Earlier, This Is Taimyr wrote that the Russian Geographical Society and the Northern Fleet will continue joint expeditions in the Arctic: the research season in the Kara and Barents seas will take place from May to September.
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Text: Ekaterina Maksimova, Photo: Nikolay Shchipko and the Arctic Development Project Office
