According to the information of Klin local historians about duralumin fragments of an unknown aircraft in the area of Klin, specialists of the Center for Contemporary History conducted an operational reconnaissance of the area in the winter of 2020. During the initial inspection of the crash site small fragments of the center section, parts of the spars, pieces of the aircraft skin were found. According to the characteristic nodes and details, the type of aircraft is defined as a long-range Il-4 bomber belonging to Ilyushin Design Bureau. According to the technological marking (stamps), it was established that the aircraft was produced at aviation plant No. 126 of the NKAP in Komsomolsk-on-Amur. The remains of the crew, parachute systems, or personal belongings were not found.

Analyzing archival documents on the losses of Long-Range Aviation in the Klinsko-Solnechnogorsk direction, it was possible to identify the list of the crew. Art. Sergeant Simochkin, who died on 9.12.1942 near the village of Goliadi in the Klinsky district, which is located near the site of the find. A researcher of the history of aviation, Boris Davydov, found documents with the identification numbers of the aircraft and engines in the funds of the 4th long-range aviation Regiment in the Central Military District of the Russian Federation. In one of the Acts of decommissioning of the match 4 AP DD, it is indicated that the crew of pilot SIMOCHKIN from 2 AE consisting of 5 people died on December 9, 1942, when flying on a combat mission on an Il-4 aircraft No. 9609. The tag with this number was found at the crash site, confirming the correctness of the initial assumption.

The pilots who died while on a fighting mission are buried in a mass grave in the cemetery of the village of Papivino (formerly Goliadi). Their names are the navigator of the regiment: major Gorbunov Nikolai Matveyevich, the commander of the crew, pilot-art. sergeant Simochkin Vladimir Denisovich, the navigator of the aircraft-Sergeant Guzy Grigory Vasilyevich, the shooter-radio operator-ml. sergeant Bulgartsev Veniamin Grigoryevich, the air shooter-Sergeant Lazarevsky Mikhail Sergeevich.

It is also worth mentioning that the pilot Simochkin Vladimir Denisovich had a brother Vasily, who was also a pilot of the same 2nd squadron 4 long-range air regiment and who died along with his crew two months earlier on the Il-4 No. 9306 aircraft. Search teams found the place of the plane crash in 2006 in the Lubani area. The crew was buried in 2007. B. Davydov established the circumstances of the tragedy and the names of the crew in March 2015.

The collected materials will complement the data bank of the “Homeland sky” project, which accumulates information on the found places of aircraft crashes and the fate of pilots, and the wreckage of the aircraft will become the basis of search expositions about the hero-pilot.