Wessex Archaeology has been commissioned to carry out the research by English Heritage, funded through the Aggregate Levy Sustainability Fund.
Individuals or organisations with records or other knowledge about aircraft losses at sea, military or civil, are requested to make contact and make their material available.
They will also be asked whether they regard such sites as important and, ultimately, worth protecting statutorily.
Graham Scott, Wessex Archaeology's Senior Archaeologist for Coast and Marine, told Divernet that the positions of many lost aircraft remain unknown. 'There is a wide disparity between known losses and known crash sites,' he said.
Most losses are military aircraft lost in action. Hotspots, said Scott, run from the area of the Humber southward, around the South-east and west to Dorset, with a 'huge concentration' off Kent and Sussex. For instance, off Sussex alone, 935 aircraft were recorded lost between 1939 and 1945, yet the positions of 'only a few' of these are known.
The wreck of any aircraft lost while on military duty is protected automatically under the Protection of Military Remains Act 1986, whether or not lives were lost and human remains are aboard.
An exclusion zone around the site bans destructive activities such as aggregates extraction or bottom-trawling, but diving is allowed on a look-don't-touch basis.
Wrecks of civil aircraft can be protected by designation under the Protection of Wrecks Act 1973. Presence of human remains would be irrelevant under the civil legislation, guiding principles of which relate to historical or cultural value. Diving on a protected civil wreck would be possible only if acting under the direction of the wreck's appointed licensee.
The deadline for responses is 30 November, after which database collation will continue in order to improve the resource available to archaeologists and the Government in judging the potential impacts of seabed activities on aircraft wrecks that have been found and are identifiable.
Although sport diving and bottom-trawl fishing come into the equation, a main concern is the total destruction caused by aggregates extraction, for which licences have to be granted.
If the Aircraft Crash Sites at Sea research project is successful, the potential for conflict between the aggregates industry and the conservation interests of increased numbers of known and automatically protected military remains is clear.
Wessex Archaeology - 01722 326867.
Related links
Project website
|
