Well, it's certainly very odd. I'm no expert, but the fact that the AC was in control (no autopilot) would seem to indicate that the pilot had not blacked out or suffered some other medical emergency that incapacitated him. Thus, his failure to acknowledge the radio transmission or any other signal from the author is perplexing. And, given that the pilot's remains are not in the AC, it would indicate that either he bailed or landed under his control, survived and is lost to the desert. Very odd indeed. CW
Was it confirmed that his remains were not in the aircraft? Or could they have been removed at some point over the last 60 years?
Very cool find! Makes me wonder what other cool aircraft are abandoned in parts of the world due to lack of parts, interest, knowledge, etc. Countries in Africa and South America got some great warbirds, post WWII for their airforces. I wonder what happened to most of them......ROAD TRIP....BARN FIND AIRCRAFT!
It is only my conclusion from the photos and deductive logic, and not a known fact. The photos show no remains in the cockpit or nearby. And, there were no photos of any marker stones anywhere. Nor, so far, has any survivor story emerged. That said, my conclusions could well be premature or wrong. Maybe there is indeed a happy ending. CW
I did a quick search for an update. Here's something of interest: Someone is in contact with the author's family. See post #724 here... http://forum.keypublishing.com/showthread.php?t=116221&page=25 However, there is no further reference to Flight Sergeant Copping. Although, post #750 suggests that the pilot's remains won't be found far from the crash site. CW
Very very strange indeed. That time period in North Africa was UGLY for Brit, Aussie and South African fighter pilots, with P-40 drivers getting beat up really hard. JG27 and in particular one Hans-Joachim Marseille was on an absolute tear, dominating the skies with the Bf-109f. The P-40 was severely over-matched with the 109 having in particular a marked advantage in climb rate, acceleration and turning ability. Toss on top generally under trained and inexperienced Allied pilots flying against Luftwaffe aces many with close to 4 years of combat flying under their belts.... UGLY. Between June 1 and June 18 of 1942 Marseille scored 33 victories, at least half of them P-40s including 6 in less than 6 minutes on June 3d. He scored 6 more in 7 minutes on the 17th - taking him over 100 victories (101 at that point). Like I said... he was on a tear, often flying 3-4 sorties a day. Marseille died on September 30, 1942 when he bailed out of his Bf-109 over German territory due to an unexplained engine fire. He had not been engaged in combat during the flight, he bailed out apparently fine but his parachute failed to open. He had a total of 158 air to air victories at the time of his death - 151 of those achieved over North Africa. Getting into a P-40 to go fly combat against the likes of Marseille.... NO THANK YOU. Terry
Well, aol (huffington post) has a spread on it now, with a video. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/11/world-war-ii-airplane-kittyhawk-p-40-sahara-crash-photos-video_n_1507828.html?icid=maing-grid10%7Chtmlws-sb-bb%7Cdl1%7Csec1_lnk1%26pLid%3D159902 They surmise that Copping used the parachute as a sunshade before setting off on foot to civilization... c. 200 miles. The Egyptian army has removed all ammo from the plane. It was found by a Polish oil exploration group.
Wow, that thread's a great read. Lots of those people really know their stuff about old airplanes. Some interesting links in there, too. More pictures here: https://picasaweb.google.com/114682566226043469349/Airplane?authuser=0&authkey=Gv1sRgCKr-tIXt1ubCmAE&feat=directlink# An ITV news story about the plane that includes video from the wreck site: http://www.itv.com/news/2012-05-11/lost-and-forgotten-wwii-fighter-found-in-egyptian-desert/ http://vimeo.com/42002100 Fascinating...
There appears to be lots of interesting finds out there. Al Wadi al Jadid Desert. 8 Belles landing strip markers composed of avgas cans. Arrow pointing North. Long. 22.78307724 Lat. 26.00061798 Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
That's awesome, and I guess there's no good way to preserve it. But it's really cool to see. Hopefully a few of the folks who were there get to see pictures of these finds, even though that gets less likely every day, unfortunately.
The Polish forums know where its at. Now we just need to get a stealth CH-54 to go pluck it out and begin saving it. http://www.konradus.com/forum/read.php?f=13&i=7154&t=7154&filtr=0&page=2 Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
That Bing imagery is amazing! Here it is at at sightly higher resolution! Wish there was more positive story on why the pilot acted as he did though I also wonder were those rocks there when he landed or was it all sand (and the rocks have been uncovered since?)... seems an odd place to land given there are much smoother sections nearby. That said the pilot obviously put her down mostly intact... Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
I guess its great to find this plane but let's not forget the Pilot who lost his life in the event. http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/4312635/Sergeant-Dennis-Copping-is-the-pilot-from-42-whose-plane-was-found-70-years-after-he-crashed-in-the-desert.html Flight Sergeant Dennis Copping is seen wearing his leather flying helmet and goggles, with his hand resting on the air intake of a Kittyhawk P-40. Yesterday his proud nephew Roy Bennett released the photo after seeing Denniss crashed aircraft in The Sun last week. Dennis, 24, who was from Southend-on-Sea, Essex, disappeared in June 1942 after losing his bearings in the scorching Egyptian Sahara. His parachute silk was found by the fuselage for use as shelter and the aircraft radio and battery were beside it. Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
~UPDATE~ Those who were curious, as I, an expedition to locate the pilot was put together and remains have been found 8 miles from the wreck. Poor, poor bloke. Desert death is a brutal way to go. Skeletal remains have been obscured out of respect http://www.qattara.it/60-173%20Kittyhawk.htm
