How Deep?
 

Mog,
Channel 4s Time Team have done a couple of WW2 archaeology programmes, they always hook up with local Aviation Historical Research bods theres a couple of shows on Youtube:

"The Lancashire Aircraft Investigation Team, together with members of RAF Millom Museum took part in a major project in association with the Channel 4 Television's Time Team. 2005 near Warton".

They appear to have an association called the British Aviation Archaeological Council with an associated website.
Hope helpful. pp.

There is a lot on Utube where they are digging up WWII tanks and aircraft. Some of them are in amazingly good shape considering their end and where they were.

Suggest you get in touch with JARTS at Wittering, the current term for the former 71 MU who had some considerable expertise in this area.

From personal experience, the engines tend to be remarkably intact, likewise the u/c . The rest tended to be in chunks, big and small.

Not a bonajet by any chance is it Mog?!

I trust that you already know that you can't just go and dig for the jet and you need permission from the MOD first? (Granny sucking eggs and all that).

Details here... https://www.gov.uk/guidance/aviation-archaeology

Try registering and asking on the flypast forums, a lot have been involved in recoveries

https://forum.keypublishing.com/foru...toric-Aviation

I went to a talk by an accident investigator some years ago who mentioned a Jaguar which went into what was presumably soft ground. The instrument panel was found 40ft down.

Excavations are licensed on the understanding that MOD may require the licensee to surrender all items recovered to the department without compensation.

- doesn't seem very sporting.

About thirty five years I was tasked to fly an RAF station photographer over a Jaguar crash site for the benefit of the imminent Board of Inquiry (the crash had not long happened, I had just returned from flying the pilot to hospital). The Jag had gone vertically into a grass field from 10,500 feet with the engines running at high power. The impact crater was surprisingly small and compact, with only a tail pipe and one taileron showing above ground. The photographer quickly thought he'd got all he needed until we noticed an unexplained fresh swathe cut through an adjacent field of standing maize. He took photos of it, although we couldn't understand what it was at that time. The swathe turned out to be caused by an Aden cannon, which had curved upwards from the crater and tunneled itself out of the ground quite some distance away where it cartwheeled across the surface through the crop.

Mogwi,

A little thread drift.

Have you seen Sir John Treacher's Obituary in today's Telegraph?

He is credited with securing the Harrier for the R.N.

Some years ago a German Tornado crashed in a marsh. The accident investigators turned up at the site to find that the local burgermeister (spell?), concerned about groundwater contamination, had all of the physical wreckage put in a skip. I'm reliably informed that this is true.

EAP

Soft ground...not owned by MoD...not in best shape when crashed...Mogwi...

I bet for some islands down south...

I had to drop a Lada at Finningley one year. One thousand feet was the demand and I could place it quite safely from the crowd. When I released it I did a quick 45 degree bank right so we could see the impact.

The circular shock wave from just a Lada from 1,000ft was really impressive.

I recall [vaguely, as it was none of my business] a Heads of Branches meeting at RAFG HQ where the then AOC in C was getting concerned about a crash that involved carbon fibre components [Harrier?].
Was/is carbon fibre a particular hazard for the recovery and investigation teams? My only concern was getting the weather forecast right [ideally, providing good weather but .......... !]

Mogwi
Time Team was finished by Ch4 a few years ago, now relegated to repeats on Dave.
Mick Aston has now sadly passed away, but Carenza Lewis is now a lecturer at Lincoln Uni and Phil Harding is still with Wessex Archeology.

I considered Time Team to dig the original Tech site at Waddington, but was offered Bishop Grosseteste arche studes by Lincs Aviation Heritage instead. Sadly support from Waddington didn't materialise. I suspect due to the finance which Waddington would have to provide instead of Time Team, for hiring heavy plant to clear the nettles.