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RAF Museum handed over Spitfire in 'ill-conceived' deal for WWII aircraft it may never receive

January 29, 2015 | In the Press

From The Telegraph (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/defence/11377178/RAF-Museum-handed-over-Spitfire-in-ill-conceived-deal-for-WWII-aircraft-it-may-never-receive.html)

A valuable Spitfire has been lost to the nation after an "ill-conceived" deal by the RAF Museum to exchange it for the recovery of another aircraft that it is unlikely to ever receive, it has been revealed.

Museum bosses "paid" a salvage team an original Spitfire from their collection to retrieve a Second World War RAF Kittyhawk P40 plane that was found intact in the Sahara Desert 70 years after it crashed.

But three years on and the museum, of which Prince Phillip is a patron, has conceded they may have lost the Spitfire with nothing to show for it after the political unrest in Egypt stalled negotiations to bring the Kittyhawk back to Britain.

The fighter plane was discovered almost perfectly preserved in 2012 in the middle of the Western Desert.

It had crashed in 1942 and there was evidence that its loan pilot, Flight Sergeant Dennis Copping, survived the impact but perished in the inhospitable conditions.

The museum, based at Hendon, north London, hoped to return the Kittyhawk to the UK and put it on display. Staff have even earmarked a space for it.

They tasked a private salvage company with going to Egypt and saving the plane from souvenir hunters in the summer of 2012.

They handed the Spitfire, one of 110 remaining in Britain and that had been donated to the museum by the Ministry of Defence in 1998, to Kennet Aviation as payment for the operation.

A team from Essex-based Kennet were given permission to salvage the aircraft and secure it in a shipping container which was then taken to a site at El Alamein - the scene of the battle that resulted in the Allies' first victory of Germany in World War Two.

Since then the country has been gripped by political turmoil and the Kittyhawk is not high on the Egyptian government's agenda.

In the latest RAF Museum annual report, it states: "In 2012 the museum undertook a joint project with Kennet Aviation to recover RAF Kittyhawk ET574 from the Egyptian desert in exchange for one of the Spitfires from the museum's collection.

"The aircraft has been successfully retrieved and for the time being remains in secure storage in Egypt.

"Given the uncertain political situation in Egypt however there is a possibility that Kittyhawk may never be returned to the United Kingdom."

The report values the grounded Spitfire at £200,000. An airworthy Spitfire with some historic significance is generally valued at between £1 million to £3 million.

Pat Chriswick, a military aviation historian, said: "The RAF Museum have done a deal where they have got no delivery whatsoever. They have been incredibly naive.

"Surely there should have been some arrangement whereby it was dependent on the success of the recovery project.

"The Kittyhawk was recovered from the desert and taken to El Alamein. It is not a big surprise that the aircraft hasn't left the country.

"The exchange was ill-conceived and badly managed. The RAF Museum has nothing to show for it and the nation has lost a perfectly good and valuable Spitfire."

Mr Chriswick was also critical of the British authorities for prioritising the recovery of the Kittyhawk over the search for the remains of Sgt Copping.

He added: "All of this has taken place with no apparent attempt to locate the remains of Dennis Copping, who remains missing despite some promising leads"

Ray Burgess, the treasurer of the Spitfire Society, said: "There are 18 flying Spitfires in the UK and ones that have some heritage behind them can be worth as much as £3 million.

"They are very important and have come to symbolise all those people who died in them.

"So we are very sorry to hear that one has gone from being owned for the nation to private hands.

"It's also a shame the Kittyhawk has not been returned to the UK."

William Pryor-Bennett, the nephew of Fl Sgt Copping, has previously said: "The priority should be on finding my uncle rather than the plane.

"The plane is of little interest to me, if they recover it and bring it to the UK then great, but there should be more focus of searching for him.

"It's terrible that the RAF Museum have been short-changed like they have."

Iain Thirsk, head of collections at the RAF Museum, described the matter as "very frustrating" and confirmed the deal to give Kennet Aviation the Spitfire was in exchange for the recovery of the Kittyhawk.

He said: "The situation in Egypt is very unstable. There is no formal undertaking or promise (to get the Kittyhawk) but we are working on that.

"The matter is not high on the agenda of the Egyptians.

"We are continuing to work with them. It is very frustrating. To us it (the Kittyhawk) is very important but the Egyptian government have far more important things to think about."

Despite the statement in the museum's annual report, Mr Thirsk said: "We are still hoping to get it back to the UK."

Simon Brand, the defence attache at the British Embassy in Cairo, said: "The plane is still in Egypt.

"It doesn't belong to the British government, it was found on the soil of a sovereign territory and they have a right to claim ownership of it."

It is not clear what Kennet Aviation's intentions are with the Spitfire which is believed to be in storage in a hangar at an airfield in Essex.

Spitfire PK664 first flew in November 1945 - after the end of war - and issued to 615 Squadron at RAF Biggin Hill, Kent, in 1949.

It then entered storage and in 1954 it became a "gate guardian" on display outside various RAF bases.

The MoD donated PK664 to the RAF Museum which in turn loaned it to the Science Museum in London for display. In more recent years it entered the RAF Museum's reserve collection.

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