Wreckage of Spitfires used by RAF for target practice 60 years ago are discovered on Salisbury Plain

Wreckage of Spitfires used by RAF for target practice 60 years ago are discovered on Salisbury Plain.

• Remnants worth tens of thousands of pounds - and up to £2m fully restored
• Planes identified as PK518 and PK519, two Mark 22 Spitfires made in 1946
• Historian stumbled upon them during conservation work


The remains of two Spitfires that were used for peacetime target practice by the RAF have been discovered on the same firing range nearly 60 years later.

In 1954, the surplus planes were dumped in the middle of the vast Salisbury Plain in Wiltshire for trainee pilots to strafe to hone their firing skills.

The wrecks, which are still worth tens of thousands of pounds in their current state, were left in the remote spot and over the years became covered in long grass and weeds.

But plans are now in place to salvage what is left of the aircraft after historian Mark Khan recently stumbled upon them during conservation work in the area.
The fate of the two planes seems quite incredible now given the legendary status attached to the Spitfire.

Fully restored versions of them are worth about £2million today.
Mr Khan looked through the MoD archives to identify these two as PK518 and PK519, two Mark 22 Spitfires made in 1946.

The machines remain in situ in the secret location on the plain - which is about the size of the Isle of Wight.

It is understood the Royal Air Force Museum plans to recover them in the near future.

Mr Khan, 51, said: 'A colleague and I really just stumbled upon one of them by accident up a small hill.

'I realised very quickly from the shape of it that it was the remnants of an aircraft. The wing clearly featured bays for guns.

'But it wasn’t until I got home and looked at comparison photographs that I identified it as a Spitfire.'

Mr Khan checked the national archives which revealed that it was one of two given to the School of Land Air Warfare at Old Sarum, near Salisbury, for target practice in 1954.

Mr Khan returned to the scene and found the wreckage of the second Spitfire 200 yards away from the first.

He said: 'I couldn’t believe that after all these years these two Spitfires that had lain untouched and unseen for so long had been found.'

Some 21,000 Spitfires were built during and after the Second World War, although most were sold off for scrap in the early 1950s due to a shortage of metal.

The emergence of the jet engine also hastened the demise of the propeller-powered aircraft.

Mr Khan, from Arundel, West Sussex, said: 'Spitfires were written off in the 1950s but there was a requirement for them to be used for training, like these two.
'On June 1, 1954 both aircraft were dispatched to Old Sarum.

'PK518 and PK519 were erected as targets on the ranges at Salisbury Plain.
'They would have been hit by the 30mm Aden cannon fitted to Hawker Hunters.
'I can only assume that the military chiefs thought they had been blown to pieces and left them there.

'The area is so remote that it has been seldom visited over the years and their whereabouts became forgotten.'

Mr Khan believes the wreckage is still valuable today.

He said: 'Spitfires that crashed in World War Two and were buried 20ft in the ground are still flying today after being salvaged.

'It depends on what parts are left but collectively they could be worth tens of thousands of pounds.'

Spitfire pilot and expert Matt Jones, who runs the UK’s only Spitfire flying school, said hardly anybody was interested in them after the war.

He said: 'They were no longer needed and the military didn’t know what to do with them.

'Some were sold for scrap and some just buried in the ground.
'It wasn’t until about 20 or 30 years ago that there was a big revival of interest in them.

'Because they are so scarce, if you found one buried in a crater in a semi-preserved state and it came out still looking like a Spitfire, it could be worth £500,000.'


Read more: Spitfires used by RAF for target practice 60 years ago are discovered on Salisbury Plain | Mail Online

well thats just down the road from me so i might go looking