'There are no buried Spitfires', archaeologists claim He said: "We haven't stopped and we cannot stop. It is just a delay in our work, Lincolnshire farmer Mr Cundall has campaigned for 17 years to launch his quest to find the buried treasure. He claimed to have gathered testimony from eight eye witnesses, including British and American service men and locals people, who said that the planes were packaged up in crates and then buried on the orders of Lord Mountbatten in 1945. At a second excavation site in Myitkyina, in northern Kachin state, researchers found a buried crate unexpectedly full of muddy water, which they said would take weeks to pump out. Before the dig began on January 7 ground penetrating radar found a mass of metal under the site which leant weight to the theory that there were 36 planes buried there. The treasure hunt was described as a "story of British determination against all odds." A breakthrough to secure the dig was made when sanctions forbidding the movement of military materials in and out of the country were lifted earlier this year following the intervention of David Cameron. Mr Cundall was given exclusive rights to the three sites.