during a Cold War mission over the Baltic Sea more than 50 years ago
have been postponed until next year, the military said Wednesday.
The DC-3 was discovered in June by a team of private researchers and
was to be salvaged by the end of the year.
But a test run to lift the wreckage from the Baltic Sea floor last
week found that the condition of the airframe was worst than expected.
Portions of the plane, including its wings and engines, have already
been pulled from the sea.
The military said it will still prepare for the rest of the salvage
job.
The plane is believed to have crashed in the sea on June 13, 1952,
after being shot down by Soviet fighters. The wreckage is near Gotska
Sandoen, a Swedish island 120 kilometers (75 miles) east of the Swedish
mainland.
Its disappearance was veiled in mystery for decades because Sweden, a
neutral country, denied it was on a spy mission and the Soviet Union
denied any knowledge of the aircraft's fate.
In the late 1980s, Sweden acknowledged the plane's eight-man crew was
surveying Soviet military installations in the now-independent Baltic
states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. Moscow later said it was shot
down by a Soviet fighter.