(All images: low res screenshots via Rami Siag, YouTube)
On June 28, 1942, Flt Sgt Dennis Copping of the Royal Air Force was tasked to fly a damaged P-40 Kittyhawk fighter between two British airfields in Egypt for repairs. But the aircraft never arrived at its destination, and for 70 years the Kittyhawk’s fate, and that of its 24-year-old pilot, remained a mystery.
But in May 2012, a Polish oil worker stumbled across the missing aircraft, lying eerily intact beneath the fierce sun of the Sahara Desert. The chance find, described by historians as the ‘aviation equivalent of Tutankhamun’s Tomb’, revealed guns and ammunition still on board and a cockpit virtually frozen in time.
Bullet holes in the aircraft’s spine may explain why it crashed, suggesting Flt Sgt Copping had been forced to make an emergency landing after being shot at. But it’s also known than the P-40 was already damaged, perhaps also accounting for its torn skin.
Despite the Kittyhawk’s intact condition, the pilot’s remains were nowhere to be seen. But a month after the discovery, a team of Italian historians uncovered human remains three miles from the crash site. They also found a piece of torn parachute, a key chain fob displaying the number 61, and a metal button dated 1939.
Relatives of Flt Sgt Copping were hopeful that the remains were his, confirming the pilot had survived the crash and died after using his parachute to create a makeshift shelter from the sun, while attempting to walk out of the desert.
But Egyptian authorities reportedly claimed that the bones had proven impossible to extract DNA from – a theory rejected by Flt Sgt Copping’s family and several forensic pathologists involved in the case.
The UK Ministry of Defence has also been criticised for its handling of the situation. And despite the fact that the RAF Museum at Hendon is interested in the P-40 wreck, it was last noted in the possession of Epyptian authorities in a storage crate at El Alemain.
It remains to be seen whether the 260 Squadron plane wreck, and the remains of its young pilot, can be repatriated to the UK from the North African theatre. Meanwhile, in September last year, the Kittyhawk appeared in the form of 3D artwork adorning the pavement of a city in Holland.
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