Pieces of Little Prince writer's crashed plane lifted from seabed

A 60-year-old mystery was at least partly solved yesterday when pieces of a plane found lying on the seabed near Marseille were identified as coming from the wartime P-38 Lightning piloted by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, aviator extraordinaire and author of the best-known French book of the 20th century.

Saint-Exupéry, whose classic children's book The Little Prince has been translated into more than 100 languages and still sells over a million copies a year around the world, disappeared while on a reconnaissance flight off the southern French coast on the morning of July 31 1944. No trace of the writer or his plane was found.

"No further doubt is possible, this is St-Ex's plane," said Patrick Granjean, head of the French undersea archeological research centre DRASSM. "It plunged into the sea off the island of Rioul. We don't know why and we probably never will, but it is definitely his plane."

Mr Granjean said a panel of what proved to be the P-38's turbo-compressor casing, brought to the surface last September, bore a series of four numbers - 2734 - engraved by the manufacturer, Lockheed. Records held by the National Air and SpaceMuseum near Washington showed the series correspond to the US air force registration number allocated to Saint-Exupéry's plane.

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