:00:06. > :00:16.Welcome to the programme. Stories and investigations from where you
:00:16. > :00:21.live. Tonight, tragedy in the sound. One diver 's quest to solve
:00:22. > :00:26.the mystery of a wartime plane crash. He had a premonition of the
:00:26. > :00:33.night before that something would happen. He picked his life jacket on
:00:33. > :00:38.and made his friend put one on as well. Also, this artist is on a
:00:38. > :00:47.mission to help save the humble moth. They are creatures of the
:00:47. > :00:52.night and they are strange beasts that prefer the night to the day.
:00:52. > :00:58.Sea birds in peril. If you did that to cats and dogs, they would be an
:00:58. > :01:16.uproar. How science is on the trail of those responsible for a
:01:16. > :01:23.devastating chemical spill. Three years ago, a local diver made
:01:23. > :01:29.an extraordinary discovery here. Tonight we have exclusive access to
:01:29. > :01:33.underwater footage and we tell the story of one man 's obsession to
:01:33. > :02:03.uncover the true story behind a wartime tragedy. It became apparent
:02:03. > :02:08.that there was a whole lot more down there. This was not at random
:02:08. > :02:19.wreckage, it was a whole aircraft. It had not been documented. But
:02:19. > :02:27.further dives revealed a remarkable story. Underneath one of the
:02:27. > :02:34.engines, I saw a small piece of crockery. I picked it up and it was
:02:34. > :02:39.the emblem for the RAF on a plate and I counted the amount of pistons
:02:40. > :02:47.it had. Subsequent research turned out it was a Pegasus engine fitted
:02:47. > :02:56.to a Sunderland aircraft. How it never dawned on me before, I will
:02:56. > :03:00.never know! In 1939 Plymouth's RAF Mountbatten was home to the
:03:00. > :03:06.Sunderland Flying Boat, largely crewed by members of the Australian
:03:06. > :03:10.Air Force. Little remains of the base apart from a plaque
:03:10. > :03:15.commemorating the heroism of the Aussie flyers. The listed hangars
:03:15. > :03:21.remain, home to luxury yacht businesses Danny is keen to find out
:03:21. > :03:27.more about the planes and the men that flew them. He's gone to London
:03:27. > :03:35.to see one of the few Sunderlands that has survived. Is Sunderland was
:03:35. > :03:41.a stalwart of the coastal command. Very heavily armed, known to the
:03:41. > :03:46.Germans as the flying porcupine. Throughout the war years, she was
:03:46. > :03:53.absolutely vital but for convoy escort and for intercepting U—boats.
:03:53. > :04:00.Danny's trip is throwing up vital information in his search to find
:04:00. > :04:09.out what happened to the plane. It has enabled me to identify a lot of
:04:09. > :04:18.the pieces. To have tangible contact with it is brilliant. I have very
:04:18. > :04:21.little on the scene they had left. Danny's got hold of an official
:04:21. > :04:33.RAFreport that confirms that a Sunderland did crash beyond Plymouth
:04:33. > :04:37.Breakwater. It cites pilot error. He meets Darrel Jago, an expert on
:04:37. > :04:43.Plymouth's flying boats. Darrel's researched the last flight of the
:04:43. > :04:46.Sunderland, which took off in the early hours of December 21 1941.
:04:46. > :04:53.Darrel has a theory on what happened. They were going from the
:04:53. > :05:09.end of Mountbatten peer to take off—line. The Sunderland was on its
:05:09. > :05:17.way to Gibraltar. It just managed to get off but they did not get enough
:05:17. > :05:22.height to give the breakwater and they slammed into that. Only four
:05:22. > :05:27.airmen survived. The Australian pilot was among the dead and lies
:05:27. > :05:29.buried far from home in a Plymouth cemetery. Four bodies remain
:05:29. > :05:33.unaccounted for. The crash remains are now a protected war grave.
:05:34. > :05:42.Darrell thinks the weather may have played a part in the men's deaths.
:05:42. > :05:48.Ticking off is not easy and with this particular one, it had a full
:05:48. > :05:53.load of fuel to get to Gibraltar, extra crew, so it was pretty heavy
:05:53. > :05:58.laden. Things were against them. It would be interesting to know what
:05:59. > :06:04.the weather was like at the time because if it was calm, they have a
:06:04. > :06:10.job to unstick. They need some ways to break free from the suction. To
:06:10. > :06:14.find out if the weather might have been a factor, Danny visits
:06:14. > :06:18.Catherine Ross at the Met Office archives in Exeter. Could calm seas
:06:18. > :06:24.have helped stick the plane to the water? Here we have the station
:06:24. > :06:29.symbol for Plymouth. As you can see, there was a large high pressure
:06:29. > :06:34.over the country, particularly the south. Very stable weather
:06:34. > :06:38.conditions. We also had this to show you, which is the climate returned
:06:38. > :06:42.from Plymouth Mountbatten. As close as we can get to the crash. It shows
:06:42. > :06:52.calm wind conditions again. Moderate cloud cover and visibility so a good
:06:52. > :06:56.night. But not a good night for taking off in a Sunderland. So
:06:56. > :07:03.Darrel was right about the weather. But did the plane crash into the
:07:03. > :07:07.breakwater? Danny gets a letter from the RAF which seems to undermine
:07:07. > :07:15.that idea. It was later reported that beyond breakwater for, the
:07:15. > :07:20.pilot put the nose down to gain speed and flew into the sea. This
:07:20. > :07:25.leaves Danny with two completely conflicting accounts of why the
:07:25. > :07:32.Sunderland crashed. The first theory is, the aircraft came along the
:07:32. > :07:36.runway here, took off and managed to get airborne but did not get high
:07:36. > :07:41.enough to clear the breakwater here. The tail section except the
:07:41. > :07:46.breakwater, the pilot lost control and found himself crashed into the
:07:46. > :07:50.sea close by here. The other theory is that the pilot managed to get
:07:51. > :07:54.enough height, cleared the breakwater but did not have enough
:07:55. > :07:59.speed to maintain flight. So he put the aircraft into a shallow dive to
:07:59. > :08:04.increase his air velocity but miscalculated the height of the
:08:04. > :08:08.aircraft was out and the result was, he dived headfirst into the sea.
:08:08. > :08:13.Danny is beginning to believe that the plane didn't hit the breakwater.
:08:13. > :08:17.To help solve the mystery, he's off to Doncaster. He's made contact with
:08:17. > :08:21.the daughter of one of the crash survivors. Harry Lodge lived on into
:08:21. > :08:28.his 70s. Did he reveal to relatives what happened back in 1941? For the
:08:28. > :08:30.first time, the family see footage of the flying boat wreckage and then
:08:30. > :08:37.give Danny a dramatic account of Harry's lucky escape. He had a
:08:37. > :08:44.premonition the night before that something was going to happen. He
:08:44. > :08:50.put his life jacket on and he made his friend put it on as well. He
:08:50. > :08:54.remembers seeing the pilot" to see if they had cleared the breakwater
:08:54. > :09:01.and the next thing he knew, he was in the sea. All his teeth had been
:09:01. > :09:05.knocked out and his skull had been fractured. The plane's fuel tanks
:09:05. > :09:10.exploded on impact. It was a lucky premonition — Harry's friend with
:09:10. > :09:12.the life jacket also survived. Harry's son—in—law has more clues
:09:12. > :09:17.from an interview the airman gave to a local paper. I discovered after
:09:17. > :09:22.worried that the pilot had stalled as he tried to clear the breakwater
:09:22. > :09:31.in Plymouth harbour. 11 of the crew died including him. He had his head
:09:31. > :09:37.out the window trying to see the breakwater as it crashed. So, it
:09:37. > :09:40.stalled? Yes. So was it a simple stall or clipping the breakwater
:09:40. > :09:49.that that led to the deaths of eleven men? We may never know and to
:09:49. > :09:51.protect the war grave even now the RAF prefers to leave certain details
:09:51. > :09:57.of the crash site unpublished. But ex—Navy man Danny understands the
:09:57. > :09:59.huge strain on a pilot in wartime and prefers to believe the crash was
:09:59. > :10:04.due to an unavoidable stall and not human error. Have I cleared the
:10:04. > :10:12.breakwater, and I airborne? Before we have any other time to react, the
:10:12. > :10:16.plane has stalled and gone in. Beyond his ability or keep ability
:10:17. > :10:22.to do anything about it. For Danny his search for the truth may be
:10:22. > :10:27.over. Now he wants to work with the RAF to survey the site properly.
:10:27. > :10:32.Danny knows that's he's not just handling rusty pieces of a ruined
:10:32. > :10:45.plane — but bits of a machine that once held the souls of 15 brave men.
:10:45. > :10:50.The stunning beauty of the South West has inspired many creative
:10:50. > :10:55.people but the latest project of the leading artist Kirk Jackson features
:10:55. > :11:04.nothing more than a humble and often overlooked insect, one that is
:11:04. > :11:09.struggling for survival. I have been painting the wildlife around my home
:11:09. > :11:14.for 20 years but recently, I have turned my attention back to a
:11:14. > :11:16.creature I was fascinated with as a kid and that is the humble moth.
:11:16. > :11:27.I want people to think about them with fresh ideas and appreciate
:11:27. > :11:33.them. One person very much aware of them and their current plight is a
:11:33. > :11:36.farmer friend of mine who shares my fascination with these little
:11:36. > :11:45.creatures. All right? Nice to see you. Bernard is mad about Marcus and
:11:45. > :11:55.has been trapping them for 15 years. That is a nice one. Small mag five.
:11:55. > :11:59.The best one I have seen this year. Brimstone? That is right. Not the
:11:59. > :12:12.Brimstone butterfly, they get confused. That is emerald but all of
:12:12. > :12:17.those scales have worn off. Bernard Orton has three home—made traps at
:12:17. > :12:23.once. But he has to be careful where he places them. The birds get to
:12:23. > :12:31.know if you put them in the same place. They will pick up all of the
:12:31. > :12:37.ones on the outside. They can get into the trap, if they can. For my
:12:37. > :12:41.benefit, Bernard has kept some specimens from the night before. You
:12:41. > :12:56.have some special ones. Fantastic. Isn't that spectacular? Hawk moth.
:12:56. > :13:04.This is a beauty. It just looks like a hazel twig that has been snapped
:13:04. > :13:09.off on one end and that is the dead piece. One of my favourites.
:13:09. > :13:14.Absolutely beautiful, but have not seen one of those for years and
:13:14. > :13:19.years. Beautiful. Elephant more. You would think that was a tropical
:13:20. > :13:29.insect, wouldn't you? Look at that. They can hide all day and nobody
:13:29. > :13:41.will see them. Look at its tummy. Pink and green. Beautiful as well.
:13:41. > :13:51.We did not do too badly. Some real beauties. Any ideas how many species
:13:51. > :14:01.we have recorded here? Bowl, over 300, anyhow. Over these 15 years,
:14:01. > :14:08.have you noticed any changes? Their numbers have definitely dropped. We
:14:08. > :14:12.used to open the traps back in the summer when it was good, six or
:14:12. > :14:17.seven years ago, and there would be clouds of moths and you are not
:14:18. > :14:25.searching for moths. My interest in natural history goes right back to
:14:25. > :14:31.when I was a kid and moths is just one element, but there was always a
:14:31. > :14:35.new species to find. Getting the little book out, identification
:14:35. > :14:39.book, finding out what it was and where it came from. Exciting stuff.
:14:39. > :14:45.Recorders like Bernard have shown there has been a 40% decline in
:14:45. > :14:50.numbers since I was a kid. Which is really scary, it is really important
:14:50. > :14:57.not just for the moths but also, they are at the bottom of a food
:14:57. > :15:01.chain and so many other animals are living of them. You think just bird
:15:02. > :15:07.species, their food is largely made up from insects and moths. To help
:15:07. > :15:12.try to understand the reasons for this decline, I have come to the
:15:12. > :15:21.Royal Cornwall Museum to meet moth expert, Adrian Spalding. The museum
:15:21. > :15:27.holds a wonderful collection of old moths that provides a snapshot of
:15:27. > :15:31.the population over 100 years ago. We have this fantastic garden tiger,
:15:32. > :15:41.we know that is going because of climate change. This one, I have
:15:41. > :15:48.chosen, one of my favourites. Orange apple wing. That is extinct. In the
:15:48. > :15:55.prime causes is what experts call fragmentation. Colonies need to
:15:55. > :16:01.interchange so they can breed and if they become isolated, but is the
:16:01. > :16:06.road to extinction and you have habitat fragmentation because of
:16:06. > :16:09.intensive agriculture and the road network and lights and so on.
:16:09. > :16:19.Because of urbanisation, more houses. And hedges from the network
:16:19. > :16:26.across the countryside and moths will use them to fly from one area
:16:26. > :16:28.to another but they will not go across open fields. They will follow
:16:28. > :16:34.hedges. Like a moth corridor. Yes. Adrian has been leading a research
:16:34. > :16:38.into exactly how streetlights have contributed to fragmentation. He
:16:38. > :16:46.uses specially erected lights at Bournemouth University. Moths come
:16:46. > :16:49.to the light and we had a lot of streetlights and we are getting more
:16:50. > :16:54.of them a programme to change the old sodium lights which we used to
:16:54. > :17:02.see everywhere into white lights and here we have two orange lights and
:17:02. > :17:06.two of them are white. We can see the moths coming to the orange light
:17:06. > :17:10.and the white light. The research shows that the older orange lights
:17:10. > :17:14.were far less attractive to moths than these white ones. They will
:17:14. > :17:19.potentially be worse because they are taking moths away from their
:17:19. > :17:25.natural habitat and interfering with natural behaviour. Fortunately, as I
:17:25. > :17:30.see it, I live in a part of the country with few streetlights. I am
:17:30. > :17:35.hoping for a good catch in my garden with this special trick. This
:17:36. > :17:44.sheet, it is above and behind the trap and that will increase the
:17:44. > :17:52.likeness of the light. Before traps, all they had where Kelly lumps and
:17:52. > :17:59.sheets and that is what they use today. I am playing on that old
:17:59. > :18:03.idea. With any luck, I will capture some of those amazing hawk moths
:18:03. > :18:14.that I saw at Bernard 's house yesterday. Plenty of moths tonight.
:18:14. > :18:19.They are zooming past me, in the undergrowth and all—around. We can
:18:19. > :18:25.get a good view of them and hopefully I can do some drawings as
:18:25. > :18:30.well. They are creatures of the night, that is one of the reasons
:18:30. > :18:43.that I love them. Strange beasts that a night to day. Perfect. Carpet
:18:43. > :18:58.moth. That is the elephant hawk moth. Beautiful. The following
:18:58. > :19:05.morning, I'm getting more sketches before returning the moths back to
:19:05. > :19:09.the hedgerow. Some of these will be worked up for an exhibition whilst
:19:09. > :19:16.others will remain as a record of the night. I think, like most people
:19:16. > :19:26.in my work, I want people to enjoy my work and get excited but also for
:19:26. > :19:32.the work to have more residents. There is so many of them and people
:19:32. > :19:39.are not aware of them. I hope that people who see these pictures will
:19:39. > :19:42.spare a thought for the plight of the humble moth. My concern is that
:19:42. > :19:55.with the continual development of rural areas, that 40% decline could
:19:55. > :20:00.get worse. Eight months ago, thousands of dead and dying sea
:20:00. > :20:04.birds started washing up on our shores covered in a mysterious
:20:04. > :20:09.sticky substance that stopped birds feeding and flying. The official
:20:09. > :20:13.investigation drew a blank but, as we've been finding out, that's by no
:20:13. > :20:17.means the end of the story. It was from this stretch of Cornish coast
:20:17. > :20:22.that naturalist and wildlife cameraman Ian McCarthy saw what was
:20:22. > :20:28.happening to the sea birds he loves. It was like someone had taken those
:20:28. > :20:38.living creatures and dip them in varnish. It was very hard to watch
:20:38. > :20:43.them die. I only go one mile offshore and I was finding birds out
:20:43. > :20:50.there dead and dying. And probably quite if you never hit the shore.
:20:50. > :20:56.This was just the tip of the iceberg, even though it was horrible
:20:56. > :21:02.on this beach, but that was just the tip of the iceberg. Hundreds of
:21:02. > :21:03.affected birds had first been seen in late January but April saw
:21:03. > :21:08.thousands wash up along 130 miles of the South West coast. Alison Fogg
:21:08. > :21:14.helped pick up scores of birds from Lansallos beach near Polperro. It
:21:14. > :21:21.was difficult counting them so I started writing numbers in the sand.
:21:21. > :21:27.I got to an hundred and 57 and that's where I got to 157 and I
:21:27. > :21:35.realised there must be 400 on the next beach. We were talking about
:21:35. > :21:40.thousands of birds, destroyed. The oil stick, widely thought to have
:21:40. > :21:45.come from a tanker washing out its cargo, was of an industrial
:21:45. > :21:49.lubricant called PIB. It is legal to wash out in small amounts but the
:21:49. > :21:53.authorities suspected a large illegal discharge. Legal or not,
:21:53. > :22:01.wildlife charities say the practice has to stop. We are so used to
:22:01. > :22:07.thinking we can put things into the sea and they will disappear. But
:22:08. > :22:13.they will not. It has an impact in the food chain and it kills birds.
:22:13. > :22:17.We must stop treating the sea as it dustbins. —— as a dustbin. The job
:22:17. > :22:25.of pinpointing the one ship among the thousands that use the English
:22:25. > :22:26.Channel every week fell to this man, Captain Jeremy Smart, chief
:22:26. > :22:31.investigator for the Maritime and Coastguard Agency. These are not
:22:31. > :22:36.just boats picking up from British and northern European ports? They go
:22:37. > :22:42.all around the world? This is a shipping lane? It is like the M25?
:22:42. > :22:45.Captain Smart focused his investigation on empty chemical
:22:45. > :22:50.tankers passing south of Land's End from April six to the ninth, which
:22:50. > :22:57.is when injured but still living birds began to appear on our
:22:57. > :23:03.beaches. April six — April nine. We went to the safety agency. We said,
:23:03. > :23:09.given this blog that we have identified, can you give us details
:23:09. > :23:14.of the tracks of the chemical tankers passed through in that given
:23:14. > :23:21.time frame. This gave him 59 tankers, which were quickly whittled
:23:21. > :23:27.down to the 16 most likely. That was just the beginning of the search. As
:23:27. > :23:28.the MCA continued the hunt for the ship, completely independently, this
:23:28. > :23:35.Plymouth University Professor decided to use science to track the
:23:35. > :23:41.exact type of PIB that had killed the birds. This is one of the birds
:23:41. > :23:47.supplied by the RSPCA. And that is what PIB does to feathers. Professor
:23:47. > :23:55.Steve Rowland was the first person to identify the stuff as PIB from a
:23:55. > :23:57.sample sent to him by BBC South West. Each type of PIB is a distinct
:23:57. > :24:01.and commercially confidential mix, used in products as varied as
:24:01. > :24:05.chewing gum and explosives. Steve's trying to crack the chemical code in
:24:05. > :24:11.as many industrial samples as he can get to find a match for the one that
:24:11. > :24:17.killed the birds. The material on the birds and on the beaches seems
:24:17. > :24:20.to be this really sticky material. It is the stickiness that has caused
:24:21. > :24:26.the problems. It glues feathers together. After several months of
:24:27. > :24:30.detective work in the lab, Steve has already tested nine samples and
:24:30. > :24:38.narrowed it down to an unusual type of PIB. We have these peaks. And on
:24:39. > :24:45.the birds, that is three. So he's close but not there yet. Giving
:24:45. > :24:52.enough cooperation and samples, could you identify where this
:24:52. > :24:58.product came from? I think so. If we were able to get the one product or
:24:58. > :25:02.couple of products that match, that would limit the number of
:25:02. > :25:06.possibilities. This is the worst PIB pollution incident known in European
:25:07. > :25:10.waters but it's not the first. In 1994, a tanker legally washed its
:25:10. > :25:14.tanks of lubricating oil additive out off Liverpool. A glue—like
:25:14. > :25:20.substance washed up along 100 miles of coast. Hundreds of birds died.
:25:21. > :25:25.The tanker was identified because it was seen washing its tanks.
:25:25. > :25:30.Unfortunately this time the MCA has no eye witnesses, and no tell tale
:25:30. > :25:36.tide of pollution. Unlike a crude oil slick, which is easily seen, PIB
:25:36. > :25:45.is colourless and floats just under the sea surface. Every pollution
:25:45. > :25:48.case that we have taken, there has been witness or satellite evidence
:25:48. > :25:55.or direct correlation through samples and what have you. We have
:25:55. > :26:02.not got any of that on this occasion. We tried but it is not
:26:02. > :26:05.there. There must have been a ship? There must have been something. The
:26:05. > :26:10.only other possibility is that the incident happened before the sixth?
:26:11. > :26:18.Yes. Once you start to expand your time frame, your geographical area
:26:18. > :26:22.expands because it drifts and at some point you must say,
:26:22. > :26:28.realistically, are we going to get anything? What a beautiful day.
:26:28. > :26:32.Although the mystery ship has disappeared along with any prospect
:26:32. > :26:39.of prosecution, the paper has not. This is a good spot. At Lansallos
:26:39. > :26:47.beach in July, Alison and Ian discover it's still here. That is
:26:47. > :26:56.still coated in PIB. That is a bit of bird. If you did that to cats and
:26:56. > :27:02.dogs, just let them die, there would be an uproar. It is just that people
:27:02. > :27:05.don't see that out there. That is what is happening, it is a horrible
:27:05. > :27:11.way to die. There is the bigger question, stop that happening. It is
:27:11. > :27:19.just plain wrong. Stock to the rocks. All around. This is the high
:27:19. > :27:25.water mark. There's hope, though, that science might yet provide the
:27:25. > :27:30.answer. Another important clue has come from a German chemist. Inside
:27:30. > :27:33.Out has spoken to an independent expert who analysed for the MCA the
:27:33. > :27:39.PIB that killed all these sea birds. He's concluded that it is an
:27:39. > :27:43.unusual variant of the chemical, which isn't commonly carried. And
:27:43. > :27:45.that's significant because it could pave the way for a change in the
:27:46. > :27:50.law. If the International Maritime Organisation finds that this
:27:50. > :27:56.particular PIB is a new type that hasn't been assessed, it could ban
:27:56. > :28:01.its disposal at sea. If there is any flaw in the lower, which has enabled
:28:01. > :28:06.a product like this to be legally discharged but still can be
:28:06. > :28:12.significant harm to the environment and wildlife, yes, of course the law
:28:12. > :28:19.needs to be changed. Tracing the maker of this rare PIB involved
:28:19. > :28:22.could help find the ship and the MCA says if important new information
:28:22. > :28:26.comes to light, the investigation could be re—opened. The mystery of
:28:26. > :28:40.where this deadly slick of chemicals came from may yet be solved. That is
:28:40. > :28:40.all for this week. We are back next Monday with more stories. Goodbye.