Spitfire Wreck in Edinburgh's Botanic Gardens

Spitfire Wreck Unearthed in Edinburgh’s Botanic Gardens

Image via Frelon (Professional Pilots Rumour Network)

(Image via Professional Pilots Rumour Network)

Wreckage from a Supermarine Spitfire that crashed in Edinburgh’s Botanic Gardens during World War Two has been recovered – 69 years after the fatal accident that claimed the life of its pilot. Pilot Office Arthur Searle, 20, was on a training mission in 1941 when his aircraft collided with another Spitfire. The second pilot was able to parachute to safety, but Pilot Officer Searle was killed after bailing out too late. He is buried in Dirleton cemetery, East Lothian, while his aircraft remained ten feet below what used to be the curator’s private garden.

Read more about this story at the Daily Dust.

(The Spitfire shown above is not the Edinburgh Botanic Gardens aircraft, but the somewhat delapidated last Spitfire at RAF Kenley, a key fighter station during the Battle of Britain.)