Pilot Horst Rippert claimed Saint Exupéry : 31 July 1944 / 15 March 2008 !

[Zemper]

Some additional information that may be of interest....

Here is an article from 2004 where Luc Vanrell, the diver who found Saint-Ex's wreck believes that he committed suicide. According to the article, Saint-Ex suffered from depression, his plane was far of it's planned route and the wreck shows evidence of a vertical crash. http://www.cdnn.info/industry/i040807/i040807.html

The following is taken from Wikipedia about Saint Ex:
"In 2000, a diver named Luc Vanrell found a Lockheed P-38 Lightning crashed in the seabed off the coast of Marseille. Extraction followed in October of 2003. On April 7, 2004, investigators from the French Underwater Archaeological Department confirmed that the plane was, indeed, Saint Exupéry's. The wreckage showed traces of neither shooting nor aerial combat. In June, 2004, fragments were given in June 2004 to the Museum of Air and Space in Le Bourget, France."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antoine_de_Saint-Exupéry

-Eric Zemper