Flt Sgt Copping's P-40 From The Egyptian Desert

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Mark: It is my understanding that the Italian team are the only ones to know where the "original" bones are. When I asked of the MOD where the second set came from, they claimed not to know. The Italians do not seem to know either.

Andy: your post 445 got duplicated!

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Mark: It is my understanding that the Italian team are the only ones to know where the "original" bones are. When I asked of the MOD where the second set came from, they claimed not to know. The Italians do not seem to know either.

Andy: your post 445 got duplicated!

Laurence, remind me as it was some time back in the 'quarantined' thread, weren't these bones found some kilometers away from the wreck? An amazingly 'lucky' find in the millions of square metres of desert between wreck and bones.

My understanding is that if the British authorities had had the precise location of the reported bones from the Italians, a party would have recovered them forthwith.

Mark

Mark

There were claims and counter-claims that the British authorities did have the GPS location. But that is hardly the point, now. Or perhaps it is...!

The point is; where did these bones come from if not the Italian find? And what is their supposed connection to the P40? Suddenly, we have a random collection of bones from which it is said DNA cannot be recovered (Laurence Garey highly doubts that this is so) but nobody knows where they came from, it seems. And if they do know, they won't say.

So, if the British authorities did not have the GPS location and could not have located them then what bones have been recovered, and from where?

PS - Mods, something odd going on with the forum. After I have posted I get a message "Do you want to leave this page?" and when I click "Stay on page" a duplicate of my post appears....and then defies all efforts to delete. Is it just me??

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That's right Mark. Some 8 km south. The team described how they reckoned they should try southward, and they spotted a piece of (apparently) parachute, near which were the bones.

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Andy,

It also begs the question - 'If the location of the bones has not been given to the authorities, then why not?'. Whilst they are clearly at fault for announcing that bones that have been located in the area are not those of Copping, and implying that these were the bones in question, they cannot be at fault for not identifying something they don't know the location of. In order now to satisfactorily resolve this issue, is it not now incumbent on Arrido to pass on that location?

Bruce

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Bruce: ARIDO know where the original bones are: they were apparently required to leave them where they found them by the "Egyptian authorities", although I have no idea who this was, nor why.
Yes, I wish we could recover the bones and get them tested.
But what are the "new" bones, and where did they come from? We just do not know.

Bruce.

Correct as regards to the location issue.

As to "not being at fault for not identifying something they don't know the location of" you are again correct. However, the point is that the MOD have told the family that some bones that have been recovered from the desert have been tested and it has proved impossible to extract DNA.

Not unreasonably, it was assumed initially that these were 'the Italian bones'. That seems, now, not to be the case - and yet the MOD/British authorities seem to have no idea where these bones came from or even if they are the same bones the Italians found! They have certainly suggested that they are not. So, where have they come from, who recovered them and how have they been 'associated' with the P40? Either way, the family have been told that bones recovered from the desert were impossible to test for DNA and thus it could not be said whether they were those of Dennis Copping.

The family deserve some straight and unambiguous answers to their legitimate questions.

From the perspective of interests in the UK I suspect that it would be very convenient if the inconvenient matter of the pilot were dispensed with, one way or another.

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The new bones are now entirely irrelevant; if they are too old to test, then they have no relevance to this enquiry whatever.

For the sake of the family, and posterity, it is incumbent on Arrido to pass on the co-ordinates to the relevant authorities, that they might be tested, and we can move on. Until that is done, it is pointless apportioning further blame. As Peter suggests, expecting anyone else to repeat their feat of finding bones within millions of square miles of desert is perhaps a little unreasonable.

If Arrido had been asked to leave them be, they were talking to someone in authority. Can the wheels not be greased to allow those bones to be recovered, and we can draw a line under them one way or another?

Bruce

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Bruce: IF they are too old to test. That is the question.

There have been so many red herrings in this sad story already. First the bones were 400 years old, then they did not yield DNA (until the story appeared that they were different bones), now we cannot even find WHERE this second set was tested, by whom or how. Those are important factors to consider.

The bones are not irrelevant (either set, if there are two). They are part of the absurdly complicated story. We are trying to "grease the wheels", but so far are getting nowhere.

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I'm basing my assumption on the suggestion that there is no DNA suitable for testing - that being the case, it would seem that they are older that 70 or so years, and therefore irrelevant. I suspect there are a LOT of bones in the desert, dating back many thousands of years, and mostly from animals..!

If there are no bones, and in fact no testing has been done, then that is another story.

It seems to me that it is imperative to get the location of the bones that Arrido found so that they at least can be tested - it was suggested all along by the Italians that they 'may' be Copping's bones, and that is what got us started on this whole sorry story.

Personally, and I have said it before, I find it incredible that they may have found Copping's remains at some distance from his aircraft - unless, as was suggested (by Pat I think) they were tipped off by the Bedouin. Whatever, the authorities are being painted in a bad light here, but they aren't the only villains!

Bruce

Bruce

I think all would agree that there needs to be total transparency from all parties in this, and that includes Arido and the British authorities. Only then will the muddle stand any chance of being unravelled.

At least three of us, behind the scenes, have been trying to 'grease the wheels' you speak of - but a VERY big part of the problem is that the truth has not always been told along the way. The reasons for that are hard to fathom.

As to the question of no DNA being recoverable from the bones recovered (whatever bones they were!!) I think Laurence is of the view that it is most unlikely that DNA would not be recoverable notwithstanding their age, condition and location. And if I may say so, then Laurence is in a position to know about such things.

All it needs if for the parties involved to be open, honest and transparent. That is all the family want. Is that too much to ask?

Apparently so.

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Andy,

Quite so - I am very much of the opinion that if the location of the Arrido bones can be provided to the appropriate person at the MoD, then this whole thing can be progressed. Unless and until they are willing to provide that, you are all treading so much water. Certainly it is difficult to be wholly critical of the authorities, although they do seem to have made an extraordinary hash of some basic things.

I absolutely understand that Laurence is an expert witness in all of this - I have no idea at what age range total loss of examinable DNA would take place, though it is likely to be different in a desert environment that it would be over here. I would imagine however, that it would be more than 70 years.

I remain of the opinion that Denis Copping is unlikely to be found. If he died in the accident, some other entity removed his body from the wreck, and may have buried it nearby. If he survived, and there is some circumstantial evidence that suggests that he did, then he may well have perished walking away from the aircraft - we just don't know.

Bruce

Bruce

Agreed, although all of that pre-supposes that the British authorities have the will or the intent to act on the precise location information if it is provided.

At the moment, it would just be helpful if the British authorities explained exactly and precisely what the position is; ie what are these bones, where did they come from and how did they come by them? That isn't difficult.

The bones found by the Italians may well be unrelated to the P40, and many of us are of the view that there has to be a big question mark over that. One thing is certain; they ARE human. Also, they were reportedly found with a chunk of what seems to be the parachute canopy found alongside the P40. Additionally, I think I am correct in saying that other information is now to hand which rather makes more sense of the apparently 'random' or 'chance' and otherwise unlikely discovery of the remains by the Italian team. Pat1968may well be able to elaborate on this if he thinks it appropriate.

As things stand, it is hard not to think otherwise than that the authorities are desirous of an epic PR disaster. If so, then they are already well on the way to achieving that goal. My perception, and perhaps unfairly, is that the primary concern, here, is in getting the P40 back to RAFM and the matter of Flt Sgt Copping is an unfortunate irritation. Whilst we would all like to see that I am not sure that a PR disaster will be helpful in respect of that goal. So, for every-ones sake, but mainly that of the family and Dennis Copping, is it too much to hope for that somebody, somewhere, finally has the nous to get a grip on this?

I fear, from all that I know, that the time to do so is running out.

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Andy, we agree on most of this - Arrido are the key though - pass on those co-ordinates, and it does unlock the next piece of the puzzle. Until that is done, we can shout at the authorities all we like, but they cant act without that information. If they get it wrong after that, I'll join you on your stump!

Bruce

Bruce

Agreed...but please don't get me wrong! I am not just shouting at the MOD/British authorities and am equally frustrated with the Italians, to be honest. To an extent, they remain the key to unlocking all of this but I am aware they read this forum (and sometimes post) and nothing is to be achieved at this stage by antagonism - which none of us want. There remains a desire to work with them in a spirit of co-operation, but that is in their hands. On the other hand, the British authorities certainly deserve some criticism on two counts; first, for falsely telling the family that the remains found by the Italians were at least 400 years old when there was no such evidence either way (a lie exposed as such by some of those who have been closely involved on this forum) and secondly, when they were supposed to have finally got their act together, for stating that DNA was not recoverable from the bones....but then not actually knowing what bones they were talking about or where they had come from.

Honestly, you couldn't make it up!

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Please correct me if I have got this wrong.
They have found bones and then said that DNA was not recoverable from the bones, without trying to recover any DNA.

If this is the case it's a disgrace. What is his family going through?

Seems like the P40 is more important than Dennis.

They have found some bones from somewhere and have stated that DNA was not recoverable from these bones.

Nobody seems to be clear where these bones are from, but they seem likely not to be the bones found by the Italian team.

The bones found by the Italian team were declared some months ago by the MOD to be at least 400 years old. And then it emerged that nobody knew that this was so...because they hadn't been tested and were still in the desert.

I think that sums it up.

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But we have so far not been able to find that the "second" set of bones was ever tested. Maybe they were, maybe not. No one can say, or at least no one IS saying.