Crashed plane of Second World War pilot Dennis Copping discovered in the Sahara desert | Mail Online

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1977 300d 70k--sold 08
1985 300TD 185k+
1984 307d 126k--sold 8/03
1985 409d 65k--sold 06
1984 300SD 315k--daughter's car
1979 300SD 122k--sold 2/11
1999 Fuso FG Expedition Camper
1993 GMC Sierra 6.5 TD 4x4
1982 Bluebird Wanderlodge CAT 3208--Sold 2/13

Reminds me of an episode of Twilight Zone.

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1982 300SD " Wotan" ..On the road as of Jan 8, 2007 with Historic Tags

Me too.

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83 SD

84 CD

We must be about the same age--you old guy.

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1982 300SD " Wotan" ..On the road as of Jan 8, 2007 with Historic Tags

It's possible.

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83 SD

84 CD

Actually, there was a made-for-tv movie back in the 70's, starring Richard Basehart, that was a sci-fi/paranormal/fictionalized account of a similar find many years before - of a B-24 that became lost returning from a raid and over shot it's base on the North African coast, continuing far south until it ran out of fuel and crashed deep in the Libyan desert.

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Just say "NO" to Ethanol - Drive Diesel

Mitchell Oates
Mooresville, NC
'87 300D 212K miles
'87 300D 151K miles - R.I.P. 12/08
'05 Jeep Liberty CRD 67K miles
Grumpy Old Diesel Owners Club

Maybe its the same story. What made me think of Twilight Zone was the story was told as a flash back by one of the members of the crew. The person listening did not believe the story, and thought the guy was suffering from a form of dementia--until the crew member fell asleep (or died). Them as the "listener" was leaving he found that the crew member's shoes were full of sand.

Memories fade after 50 years.

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1982 300SD " Wotan" ..On the road as of Jan 8, 2007 with Historic Tags

B-24 "Lady Be Good"...April 4th 1943...returning to Benghazi after bombing Naples, passed over base because direction finder aerial could not differentiate between a signal ahead or behind the aircraft. Crashed +400mi inland. Found in 1958 by oil exploration crews. Crew perished, all but one of their remains were recovered in the 1960s.

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Never a dull moment at Berry Hill Farm.

I remember watching a 'Special' on TV about this. It was probably in 1960 or so.

The flight was recreated under the same circumstances to try and get a feel for what the Pilots must have been thinking. It was found that at night and with only moonlight to see by the desert looks a lot like ocean waves. Therefore the Pilots must have thought they were still over water until they ran out of fuel and had no choice but to bail-out. A diary recovered from one of the crew's bodies confirmed this.

Found the made for TV movie with Richard Basehart, aired in 1970, the fictionalized account of the "Lady Be Good" -

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sole_Survivor_(1970_film)

This movie has a dark paranormal twist to it, the ghosts of the dead crewmen as characters in the film, invisibly watching the investigation and trying to influence the living to search for their bodies.

One of the recovery crew (Basehart) is the living "sole survivor" of the aircraft - on their last bombing mission, he panics and abandons his crewmates by bailing out over the ocean. Without thier navigator, the plane becomes lost and crashes deep in the desert - now a brigadier general, he fears a courtmartial and the end of his career if anyone discovers what really happened.

Basehart lies and says the other crewmen bailed out with him over the ocean, and tries to use his rank to force the rest of the investigating team to rubber-stamp the investigation with that conclusion.

One night, Basehart gets drunk, and the ghosts of his crewmates are able to make themselves visible and audible to him. Scared out of his wits, he piles into a jeep and goes tearing off across the desert in an effort to escape, pursued by the rest of the investigating team, and ends up leading them straight to the decaying liferaft and remains of the dead crewmembers.

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Just say "NO" to Ethanol - Drive Diesel

Mitchell Oates
Mooresville, NC
'87 300D 212K miles
'87 300D 151K miles - R.I.P. 12/08
'05 Jeep Liberty CRD 67K miles
Grumpy Old Diesel Owners Club

From a scrapmetal standpoint there are likely a few old Mercedes out there that might have been more trouble than they were worth 50 years ago.

But now.... What would a 1939 staff car be worth even if it were somewhat shot up? Or an old Kublewagen?

If anyone wanted to do a Google earth scan they need to start by following pipelines and looking off to either side of them.

Dang, that's some rough looking real estate. And 200 miles from the nearest town? Wow.

Amazing how wrecks like that will sit for years undiscovered. Some years back, search teams were going through the Pasayten Wilderness (north of the North Cascades pass in WA state) looking for a lost hiker and found the several years old wreckage of a light plane with the remains of two passengers. Also found was several hundred K in cash. Conclusion was that they were going to Canada to buy drugs and their flight plan had not been known.

Makes you wonder. What would you do if you discovered wreckage like that?

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Te futueo et caballum tuum

1986 300SDL, 362K
1984 300D, 138K

What wreckage?

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1982 300SD " Wotan" ..On the road as of Jan 8, 2007 with Historic Tags

Lots of stuff still laying in the desert, no one picked up the debris.

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2016 Corvette Stingray 2LT
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The eastern Mojave is littered with old wwII trucks tanks etc from when Patton was training troops there-- the railhead is called Rice-- whats left is an off ramp out ther half way between 29 palms and parker AZ