A group of volunteers in eastern Germany had recovered a German fighter jet from World War II which had rammed eight metres into the ground when it crashed.
“A plane wreck of this size and quality hardly exists in Germany,” Christian Tannhaeuser, the state of Thuringia’s spokesman for historic preservation and archaeology, said on Thursday.
The plane was discovered near the town of Ballhausen in Thuringia in June, according to dpa/NAN reports.
“The fighter crashed into what used to be swampland, and then penetrated eight metres into the earth,” Tannhaeuser explained.
Experts assumed that the pilot had survived the crash by ejecting in time.
The wreck is now being examined in Ballhausen. It was not yet clear what would happen to it afterwards.
According to Tannhaeuser, the plane is a Messerschmitt Bf 109 model, which was one of the German Luftwaffe’s most important jets in the war.
The volunteers had been directed to the find by several eye-witness reports and tip-offs, he added.