AMATEUR aircraft investigators have unearthed parts of two Hurricane fighter planes which crashed on Bolton moorland 50 years ago.

The Lancashire Aircraft Investigation Team have spent the weekend digging at the site of the crashed planes off Scout Road in Smithills.

The Hurricanes collided in mid-air in February, 1945 before plunging 7,000ft into the ground killing the pilots.

The plane enthusiasts have speculated that the pilots, who were outside their authorised area, may have been flying in close formation over the town to show off to a girlfriend in Bolton.

They found that not much of the planes remained because most of the structure would have been destroyed in the crash.

Parts were also removed to a museum in Liverpool during digs in the 1970s.

But the team were pleased with what they managed to recover during a two-day dig.

They brought out parts of the undercarriage and fuselage of one plane which crashed at Hampsons Pasture. And from the other plane, which landed on the opposite side of Scout Road near Horrocks Farm, they recovered bomb switches and fuel pipes. There was also the poignant find of a parachute buckle from one of the pilot's jump suits.

But the reason why the two planes had flown to Bolton remains a mystery 50 years on from the tragic crash.

The two pilots, both aged just 21, were supposed to be on a training exercise around the Cheshire area. Yet they had flown in formation directly to Bolton from an airstrip in Calveley.

Nick Wotherspoon, in charge of the dig, said: "We can only make a guess at why they were flying over Bolton.

"They only had authorisation for local flying but came straight here after take off.

"They wanted to fly over a certain area, perhaps a girl's home. It was a favourite trick of pilots. A lot of them were killed doing things like that."

Their 20-minute long flight ended in disaster when the two Hawker Hurricanes collided in cloud in mid-air.

They probably died in the collision -- neither pilot managed to eject out of their plane.

The bodies of the two airmen, flight sgt Thomas Stanley Taylor, from Scarborough, and warrant officer Norman Thomas Huckle, from Brondesbury, in Brent, were taken away at the time of the crash.

Nick's team of 12 fellow enthusiasts spent a day recovering parts of one plane two weeks ago and went back again on Saturday to dig at the site of the second plane.

He said: "We were a little disappointed because we had heard rumours that the Rolls Royce engines were still in one of the planes.

"But we have taken some interesting artifacts. We will have to clean them and study them before we know exactly what some of them are."

The team have been researching the plane crash since February.

They had to get permission from the Ministry of Defence to excavate the sites, as well as a local farmer and landowner North West Water, because disturbing wrecked Second World War aeroplanes is otherwise against the law.

However, the MOD report from 1945 gave a wrong location for one of the planes and Nick had to find an old gamekeeper who remembered finding the wreck.

Nick added: "It was amazing for the first Hurricane to find that part of it was still stuck out of the ground.

"The crater was still there even after 50 years. When we began the excavation we could still smell the oil and fuel.

"It was very sad to think that two people had died. It brought it home to us."

Some parts of the plane have been left in the ground by the team as a memorial to the two dead pilots.

Eventually Nick hopes to exhibit those artifacts which he recovered from the wrecks.

He invited local groups to contact him -- or anyone who knows of other historic air crashes in the Bolton area -- telephone 01254 265036.