Meant to add – brilliant to see these aircraft disassembled. What an opportunity to create a detailed photo record!

Even more than the bumpy cockpit Spitfires that canopy takes all the aggression out of it.

Not very 109-ish for the punters paying to take a ride in it.

Maybe the answer would be to re-equip it with a G-12 style canopy, possibly without the side-bulges to give the passenger a real 109-feel.

There are a couple of issues that I can see.

First there appears to be no British organisation similar to those of other nations, whose responsibility is specifically the recovery of MIA remains – if there is, then it is inadequately funded and does not go to the same lengths, and does not have the same support, as those of other nations. Getting this organisation established requires government support – pushed by British public support. The failure to pursue Dennis Copping’s remains merely highlights this deficiency. MIA recovery is certainly not the RAFM’s reason for being – and yes, because there isn’t a proper body to do so, the MOD’s handling of statements etc was decidedly poor.

The outrage over Dennis Copping’s remains surely stems from the fact that bones that could have been his WERE found, along with other personal relics that would appear to have been his. If nothing had been found, or taken by others, I’m sure there would be greater acceptance of the searches that have been conducted. ARIDO reported that there was every indication that Dennis Copping had left the crash site. I assume that the recovery team did not have the locations of the remains seen by ARIDO, or they would have visited the site.

It’s one thing to arrange and get permissions to recover and remove an object like a plane. It’s a whole different problem to recover and possibly remove human remains from someone else’s country. Really the only people who have immediate remit to do it are the Egyptians themselves. If ARIDO’s reports are correct, this is exactly what the Egyptians have done, and no doubt they have the ability to do this professionally – ARIDO says the remains that they saw are gone (and presumably after the initial recoveries for samples for DNA work). Tim – I would take a guess that even if you had found human remains you would not have had permissions from the Egyptians to recover them? Presumably police presence and that of a coroner (or equivalent) is required in Egypt, as in Britain, to recover relatively recent human remains.

So there’s a few questions that could be asked (and this is a repeat of what has been said from time to time previously I think):

Where are the bones now – what happens to recovered human remains in Egypt?
Who did the recovery of human remains?
Who did the DNA testing?
Who would be the people to talk to nicely about this in Egypt?
In terms of the plane, what were the plans to move it onward from El Alamein? Did the Egyptian authorities decide to keep it for their museum?

Are the answers to all these questions just lost in the staff changes that occurred within Egyptian state departments following following the change in Egyptian government? I suspect there are people who know, but just don’t want to say right now because of the finger pointing that then goes down.

“As ever, there is much obfuscation here.” – point taken Bruce, and very probably so. Stories get changed somewhat, and reported inaccurately. However it would seem purposeless to go to great lengths to fabricate maps and photos.

I think the position where the ARIDO team indicate that they found bones is pretty predictable, and that with a map in front of them on site they could easily have sat on the wing of the plane and taken a decent bet on the best route to follow based on the terrain (which is fairly readily apparent from the photos they have posted, coupled with Google Earth, and having seen some similar environments) and the nearest source of water or help.

I think it’s very likely that Dennis Copping had worked out where he was approximately, and may well have seen the oasis at Farafra (approximately 30km southeast) before he landed – the plane was pointing roughly in this direction, assuming it did not rotate on hitting the rocky ground. The plane landed on elevated rocky ground – a hill or ridge of sorts, where the going east or west is probably rough on foot. Immediately south is a 4km wide sandy area then more NE-SW trending low rocky hills and ridges, through which are a series of sandy valleys or gullies where the going would have been easier to get through/over the ridge to the plain area beyond. The bones found by ARIDO appear to be in one of these – heading south in approximately the right direction for Farafra.

And based on what others have now said, I do agree that there does appear to be scope to criticise the RAF museum’s methods. I can only think that they were persuaded to go a high cost route because of the perceived urgency or immediacy of getting it done.

Well, Mmitch, maybe things are stable enough now in that part of Egypt (and also the part of Libya immediately West) that it is worth getting onto MPs again and seeing if something further can be done now. The remains will presumably still be there – or if those are not his then it becomes safer to carry out a much wider search.

I suppose the question is who would be responsible for recovery of his remains, or for widening the search for them.

My guess is that at the time the plane was recovered it was a readily definable job, in terms of get in, get the plane, get out, including relatively simple bureaucracy – it needed to be done quickly, and also was within the remit of what the RAF museum should be doing (i.e. acquiring an aircraft). Body recovery does not fall within their remit, and could easily have cost another spitfire, if an extensive search was to be funded – but wasn’t really their bill to pick up.

As I understand it from what has been said a limited further search was made, within time available on site. But a full search would require different personnel, different appropriate equipment for the terrain, and it’s own budget/funding. Sorry if I sound very capitalist here, but sadly it is the way it works – and Britain does not have the same MIA set up as some other nations. But I think this has been said many times before in this thread….

I seem to recall a figure of 120 000 pounds being bandied about, either earlier in this thread or in one of the papers, as the value of the spitfire. I would expect that to be about right to organise the extraction of the aircraft at short notice in remote, difficult and hostile terrain in Africa.

Thanks Mark12 for those interesting insights to the process that had been set up in 2012. I would say that no blame should be leveled at the RAF Museum – someone had to put something in process for someone to put up the money to get the plane out before it was stripped, and without cash themselves the RAF Museum (and other British participants, with Egyptian help) had the balls to get on and do just that. The end result (as Mark12 said) is that a Mk 22 spitfire will be rebuilt and put back into the air rather than sitting on a shelf in a store, and the jury is still out on the future of the P-40 – but it hasn’t gone for scrap or souvenirs. Well done to all involved I would suggest, even if it never ends up in the UK!

Understood Moggy. It would be a sad state of things if has been spirited off out of Egypt.

The Alamein memorial is of course where Dennis Copping is remembered. It would perhaps be most appropriate to display his aircraft there.