Finnish Air Force to commemorate National Veterans’ Day with a flypast in Kilpisjärvi

The Finnish Air Force will fly an F/A-18 Hornet flypast at the Three-Country Cairn on the border of Finland, Sweden and Norway in Kilpisjärvi on 27 April 2023.

Lapland Air Command will carry out the flypast with one F/A-18 Hornet multi-role fighter at 12 noon during the flag raising ceremony. The flight altitude will be 1000 ft, approximately 300 metres. The flypast will have a weather reservation.

The Finnish Air Force will commemorate National Veterans’ Day also by participating in local remembrance events across Finland. 

National Veterans’ Day is observed in Finland each year on 27 April, the day the Lapland War ended in 1945. The very last German troops left Finnish territory and crossed the border to the German-occupied Norway on 27 April 1945, marking the end of the World War II in Finland. 

The Finnish Air Force’s final operational sortie during the war, a Dornier Do 17 photographic reconnaissance mission from Kemi airfield to Kilpisjärvi, took place on 4 April 1945.