 The rights and wrongs of this activity was confused by conflicting statements from the Ministry of Defence, who, in 1973 stated that they had abandoned all claim to crashed planes and that any of official interest had been recovered.Later on they reversed this position, claiming Crown title of both RAF and German wrecks and stating that any excavation required official permission, issuing guidelines and threatening that excavation without such permission was illegal interference with Crown Property.Excavations continued however, and several incidents involving the discovery of human remains and live ordnance (along with concerns about divers and shipwrecks) led to the passing of the Protection of Military Remains Act in 1986.