Boston A20 plane

On the floor of the Black Sea, off the coast of Russia's North Caucasus region, lies the wreck of an aircraft that tells a story of a global war fought with intercontinental logistics and extraordinary technological transfer. The Boston A-20 — known to Soviet forces as the American Havoc, supplied under the Lend-Lease program that brought thousands of American aircraft to Soviet service during the Second World War — rests at a depth that challenges advanced divers but rewards those with the training and experience to reach it. The Douglas A-20 Havoc was a twin-engine attack aircraft developed by the United States in the late 1930s and produced throughout the war in enormous numbers. Under the Lend-Lease program, more than three thousand A-20s were transferred to the Soviet Union — the largest single recipient of Lend-Lease aircraft — where they served with the Soviet Air Forces in a wide range of roles from low-level attack to torpedo bombing and maritime reconnaissance. The Black Sea theater saw intensive aerial activity throughout the war, and the aircraft that went down in these waters came from all sides of the conflict. The Boston A-20 off the North Caucasus coast met its end through the various hazards of wartime aviation — combat damage, mechanical failure, or the storms that the Black Sea generates with little warning — and settled on the seabed in a preserved state that the Black Sea's specific oceanographic conditions have maintained better than more corrosive marine environments might. The upper layer of the Black Sea, where all diving occurs, is less saline than the open ocean and contains significant freshwater input from the rivers that drain the surrounding landmass. This lower salinity environment affects the rate of metal corrosion and biological colonization differently than fully marine conditions. The aircraft as a dive site presents the particular fascination of aviation wreck diving — the recognizable forms of a machine designed for the sky, now permanently grounded in the underwater world. The twin Pratt & Whitney or Wright Cyclone engines that powered the A-20 remain identifiable as substantial metal masses in the sediment or on the seabed beside the fuselage. Wing sections, though likely distorted by the impact of sinking and the slow settling of decades, retain the distinctive planform of the aircraft's design. The cockpit area — where the pilot sat behind Plexiglas panels, scanning the sky and the instruments that told him where he was and how fast he was going — is among the most evocative components of any aircraft wreck. The marine colonization of the Boston A-20 reflects the Black Sea's biological character. The metal surfaces are coated with the encrusting organisms that the Black Sea supports — mussels clustering on horizontal surfaces, sponges and anemones on vertical faces, the coralline algae that colonizes hard substrate throughout the upper oxygenated layer. Fish use the wreck as shelter and territory — scorpionfish inhabit the aircraft's crevices and recesses with their characteristic stillness, while more mobile species patrol the water column above the wreck. The advanced rating for the Boston A-20 reflects both the depth of the dive and the additional hazards of wreck penetration in an aircraft whose interior spaces are confined, potentially unstable, and surrounded by sharp metal edges. Appropriate training — including wreck diving certification and proficiency with decompression planning — is essential for diving this site responsibly. The rewards for that preparation are considerable: a tangible connection to one of history's defining conflicts, resting in the depths of a sea that witnessed battles and campaigns that shaped the modern world.