In 1998, a fisherman found a bracelet engraved with the name of St-Exupery's wife

Way more than a day late and a dollar short.  News from 2004 which I missed.  Probably because I had just recently relocated back to the US with all the disruption that a family move entails.  From the BBC, French find Saint-Exupery's plane.

A French underwater salvage team has discovered the remains of the plane piloted by Antoine de Saint-Exupery, 60 years after he disappeared.

The author of The Little Prince vanished on a wartime reconnaissance mission over southern France.

Pieces of his aircraft were located in the Mediterranean sea off the coast of Marseille, the culture ministry said.

St-Exupery is seen by some in France as a national hero, and there had been much speculation about his fate.

[snip]

There had been clues to the whereabouts of his plane.

In 1998, a fisherman found a bracelet engraved with the name of St-Exupery's wife, entwined with seaweed and a fragment of a flying suit, off the coast of Marseille.

In 2000, a diver found the remains of a Lockheed Lighting P38 plane - the type of aircraft St-Exupery had been flying - in the same area.

The pieces were brought to the surface by a salvage team last year.

Researchers found the plane's serial number, which led them to confirm it was indeed the aircraft used by St-Exupery, although his body has not been found.

"I had tears in my eyes when I saw the number," Pierre Becker, head of one of the engineering firms involved, told AFP.

However, the mystery persists as to why St-Exupery's plane came down on a clear day after he had taken off from his base on the island of Corsica.

No bullet holes were found, nor was there evidence of a bent propeller, researchers said.

"We don't know why (it came down)," a spokesman for the culture ministry said.

"We probably never will."