08.09 Polar Mission � Tracing the Last Movements of the 'Soviet Lindbergh'

MOSCOW, September 8, (Alexandra Odynova, RIA Novosti) � On August 12, 1937, Soviet pilot Sigizmund Levanevsky, known in America as "the Soviet Lindbergh," and his five compatriots took off from Moscow in massive plane bound for the United States via the North Pole in a highly risky flight.

A day later, the plane veered off course.

It vanished somewhere in the Arctic, and for decades this story has been one of the great, unsolved mysteries of aviation history.

Earlier this week, over seventy years since takeoff, a group of Russian and American enthusiasts are on the verge of solving the tragedy of the first cargo-passenger flight from Moscow to Alaska.

�Years ago I found some evidence that gave me confidence on where we should search for the plane,� Yuri Salnikov, member of the Russian Geographic Society who organized the expedition, said in a recent interview.

N-209 aircraft fell off the radar a day after takeoff somewhere on the North American side of the North Pole. Salnikov and his colleagues are convinced that Alaskan Eskimos have clues to the plane�s disappearance.