WWII fighter plane wreckage, pilot's personal items found underground

The wreckage of a World War II-era Soviet jet was discovered in rural Hungary, along with some of its pilot's personal items, according to the Hungarian Museum of Military History and local media.

Excavators unearthed the Soviet Yakovlev Yak-1 fighter aircraft from about 17 feet underground in the central Hungarian village of Törtel, which is located about 50 miles southeast of Budapest, museum officials said. István Kocsis, a member of the research association who led the investigation into the wreck, said excavations in the area began in September.

Several portions of the plane were relatively intact when archaeologists recovered them from the crash site. The relics included what officials identified as a piece of the red star insignia printed on all Soviet military properties at the time, which they said was "in relatively good condition." 

Part of the aircraft's fuselage was also recovered, displaying the jet's side number, in addition to the pilot's personal belongings. Among them was a book containing the pilot's signature, which experts at the museum are currently working to restore, the museum said.

Some of the best-preserved pieces of the wreck will be exhibited by the military museum, once its archaeology department has finished carrying out restoration procedures and logged records of their obervations.

Although scientists and archaeologists alike are still working to learn more about the decades-old debris, they were able to trace the wreckage back to a particular wartime crash that took place in November 1944, Hungarian local media reported. While opposing each other over Törtel, German Lt. Peter Düttmann and Soviet Lt. Alexander Semyonovich Andrianov's aerial duel ended with Düttmann shooting down the Soviet aircraft. Although Andrianov escaped by parachute, he later became a prisoner of war, according to the news site Hungary Today.