PARIS (AP) - A French scuba team has discovered parts of the missing warplane piloted by Antoine de Saint-Exupery, author of ``The Little Prince'' and one of France's most beloved writers, an Air Force official said Wednesday.
Two pieces - from the landing gear and engine - of Saint-Exupery's Lockheed Lightning P-38 aircraft were pulled from the Mediterranean near the southern France city of Marseille, said Capt. Frederic Solano.
``Specialists have determined that it was the plane'' flown by Saint-Exupery, Solano said. ``It's a big discovery.''
The finding could shed light on Saint-Exupery's mysterious disappearance almost 60 years ago.
The author of ``The Little Prince,'' the tender fable ranked as one of the world's best-selling books, disappeared during World War II while flying a reconnaissance mission for the Allies over the Mediterranean on July 31, 1944.
Saint-Exupery's last secret mission was to collect data on German troop movement in the Rhone River Valley, but his plane vanished in the night.
Repeated searches of the coast have failed to turn up the plane, leaving the author's disappearance shrouded in mystery. Theories have ranged from hostile gunfire to mechanical problems to suicide.
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