Boy finds WWII plane with pilot's remains in cockpit

http://www.nbcmontana.com/news/irresistible/boy-finds-wwii-plane-with-pilots-remains-in-cockpit/3841 ^ | 8 Mar 17 | JUDITH VONBERG

[ARGLOCKGUY]

(CNN) - A 14-year-old Danish boy doing research for a history class found the wreckage of a German World War II plane with the remains of the pilot in the cockpit.

Daniel Kristiansen and his father, Klaus, discovered what's believed to be a Messerschmitt fighter plane buried in a field on their farm near Birkelse in northern Denmark.

"We went out to the field with a metal detector," Klaus Kristiansen told CNN. "I hoped we might find some old plates or something for Daniel to show in school."

Instead, they found bits of plane debris. So they borrowed an excavator from a neighbor and dug down seven or eight meters.

[central_va]

December '44; so it probably was an ME-109G "Gustav"

General characteristics

    Crew: One
    Length: 8.95 m (29 ft 7 in)
    Wingspan: 9.925 m (32 ft 6 in)
    Height: 2.60 m (8 ft 2 in)
    Wing area: 16.05 m² (173.3 ft²)
    Empty weight: 2,247 kg (5,893 lb)
    Loaded weight: 3,148 kg (6,940 lb)
    Max. takeoff weight: 3,400 kg (7,495 lb)
    Powerplant: 1 × Daimler-Benz DB 605A-1 liquid-cooled inverted V12, 1,475 PS (1,455 hp, 1,085 kW)
    Propellers: VDM 9-12087 three-bladed light-alloy propeller
        Propeller diameter: 3 m (9 ft 10 in)

Performance

    Maximum speed: 640 km/h (398 mph) at 6,300 m (20,669 ft)
    Cruise speed: 590 km/h (365 mph) at 6,000 m (19,680 ft)
    Range: 850 km (528 mi) 1,000 km (621 mi) with droptank
    Service ceiling: 12,000 m (39,370 ft)
    Rate of climb: 17.0 m/s (3,345 ft/min)
    Wing loading: 196 kg/m² (40 lb/ft²)
    Power/mass: 344 W/kg (0.21 hp/lb)

Armament

    Guns:
        2 × 13 mm (.51 in) synchronized MG 131 machine guns with 300 rounds per gun
        1 × 20 mm (.78 in) MG 151/20 cannon as centerline Motorkanone with 200 rpg.[68]

[Will88]

I guess the 14 year-old Dane deserves an A on his school project.

[AnalogReigns]

Like Americans, German soldiers NEVER would have buried one of their own inside a downed aircraft.

But they did leave a crashed aircraft in the ground...

[Will88]

Several photos in other articles.

Google: Daniel Kristiansen

[henkster]

This fokker was flying a Messerschmitt....

[Robe]

You’re as sick as I am .... LOL

[AnalogReigns]

If it did crash vertically...plunging the plane 20+ feet into the earth, not much would of been left on the surface to see...and not much of a body to retrieve. I suspect they would of left it there, thinking it had been obliterated.

Considering that about 1/3 of the Allied air-crews were killed over Europe, I’m sure there were many Allied aircraft crash sites where no bodies were ever recovered. The Germans lost a much higher percentage of that...and I cannot imagine they carefully recovered all the human remains from obliterated wreck sites.

[WKUHilltopper]

Must have been shot down a million years ago.

[Sasparilla]

....I cannot imagine they carefully recovered all the human remains from obliterated wreck sites...

An intact body is one thing. An unrecognizable one or body parts is a other.
We don’t even know what exactly was remaining, what the crash site looked like, and if the Germans were even around when it crashed. All of this is sheer speculation.

3 condoms? How unusual was that?

[Sivad]

Recall reading in Gen Yeager’s book about plane crashes. He
referred to crashing as “augering in”. Quite an auger,here.

[CardCarryingMember.VastRightWC]

Lol!

Und vhy did you not recover der rest uff der plane, Private Schultz?

Because it vass a "mess Herr Schmitt"!

[AnalogReigns]

I imagine German officers (and enlisted) were issued condoms for disease prevention. Truth be told US soldiers were issued condoms as well.

[Graybeard58]

Sources say Sopwith Camel (W.W.!). plus this song says shortly after the “turn of the century”.

Snoopy Vs. The Red Baron:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6hLiNaz2-lk

You are right.

Poster you posted was wrong.

[Governor Dinwiddie]

Bluelancer says: "This may have been the Luftwaffe's version of John McCain ...

LOL. We should have been so lucky …

[dfwgator]

I wonder if he flew over Pearl Harbor?

[Daffynition]

[Governor Dinwiddie]

I've visited the Flight 93 memorial in Shanksville, PA. I highly recommend it. It's in a very remote, beautiful area. Nonetheless, this shrine will make your blood boil with hatred of muslims. Take your blood pressure medicine first.

According the interpretative information there, Flight 93 left a huge crater 50 feet deep.

[BBell]

That is what i was thinking. The Germans buried it. In December 1944 the Germans were not in the best shape and the economical thing to do would be to bury it.

[BBell]

Like Americans, German soldiers NEVER would have buried one of their own inside a downed aircraft.

In December of 1944 it would be better for propaganda purposes to tell a family the pilot was lost in combat rather than telling them he died in a training run.

[AFreeBird]

Groan