Saturday, May 12, 2012

"The Aviation Equivalent of Tutankhamun's Tomb"

In March, an oil exploration team in Egypt encountered a stunning piece of history lost in the Sahara for seventy years. The Curtiss P-40 Kittyhawk shown below crashed in 1942 and remains remarkably intact. Speculation continues as to the fate of its pilot, Flight Sergeant Dennis Copping, who perished somewhere in the desert after landing the plane. Fragments of his parachute were found near the fuselage of the Kittyhawk, demonstrating the remarkable preservation qualities of the dry environment. Sadly, as at other freshly-discovered archaeological sites, the finders themselves are doing more damage than decades of wind and sand. The Royal Air Force Museum (London) is now "hell-bent" on bringing the plane back to England. You can read more here and see more photographs here. The photos below were taken by oil worker Jakub Perka.







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