FWIW - MANY MANY years ago - late 1950's- an oil exploration team found a b24 in the libyan ? dunes- near perfect condition - name as I recall was ' lady be good ". they eventually found a few traces of crew nearby who had laid out rocks into an arrow as they thouiht they were headed to coast
was a TV program about it.
Turns out during the time period, the germans had set up some phony RDF stations with the aim of confusing the planes returning from bombing raids, at night. In this case the plane had run out of gas, and most- All (?) the crew had bailed out at the last minute. As I recall, they found thermos with tea, and a radio that with minimum check and powered up still worked.
It may well be plane under discussion here suffered the same problem- following a phony RDF station.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lady_Be_Good_(aircraft)