A FORMER RAF pilot believes he may have found parts of a stricken war plane which narrowly missed crashing into a Preston school.

Polish-born Richard Danilo, who lives on Conway Drive, Fulwood, has been dowsing near Our Lady and St Edwards school and has detected a strong presence of metal where American serviceman Second Lieutenant Burtie Orth was killed in 1944.

It is believed brave Burtie chose not to bale out of the doomed Mustang but struggled to control the crash and avoid the school below, now Our Lady's RC High. The 24-year-old pilot had married Freda Jones of Marton, Blackpool three months earlier and had just been told she was pregnant.

The story has come to light after five years of intense research and correspondence between war veterans and local historians, including Richard Danilo. He took his divining rod to the school on St Anthony's Drive and scanned the ground.

He said: "It's a very important accident involving a design fault on the aircraft which made the Americans panic.

"They collected much of the wreckage to examine at their Warton depot to find out what happened so there may be no important parts left - or perhaps just a lot of old coins!

"It would be nice to commemorate the event in some way at the school."

The Harris Museum is holding a display which focuses on this and two similar crashes in Lancashire, featuring recovered aircraft parts and other artefacts until November 28.

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