Hello Philippe
As I promised, I made yesterday ( 4 april ) a trip to Baneasa-Meletie and Giurgiu to find the crash place of the B-24 Sn 41-28655 ( with Gilbert Malrait).
The Baneasa village is on top of the hill near the road. The small Meletie (old village) is mostly down hill. The crash place (as some villagers remember) is located near an old stone cross at the edge of the down hill. The ground is very soft due to many small rivers in the valley. A friend of mine used a metal detector and signal of metal in the ground was detected. The crash was in april month (with soft ground) it means some parts of the plane could be still in the ground (specially the heavy parts like engines).
What I liked at this place was the panoramic view from the hill (looking to the valley). One of the 3 storks (with nestles in Meletie) was gliding peacefully in the sky of the valley.
After Baneasa I was to Giurgiu village to find the cemetry where Gilbert Malrait was burried first time. I located the old cemetery in the nort-est side of the village (Giurgiu -Oinac road) , the ortodox side of the cemetery is very big, probably the americans were burried in the non-ortodox side of the cemetery wich is small ( romanian documents specified Gilbert Malrait burried in catholic cemetery).
I attached pictures from this trip. I hope these coud be usefull for you.The stone cross was there before B-24 crash. It is an old (1700-1900) ortodox tradition (mostly in south romania) to build a cross like this near a road, close to the village ( probably Meletie is old from 1800). Usually it is something written on it in cirilic (slavic alphabet). The cross from Meletie is to much eroded and nothing could be seen written.
I remember that I saw a similar old stone cross near my grandparents village in Ialomita county.
I don't know exactly how much distance from that cross was the plane crashed. An old man (90) said about 10-20 m south of the cross. But I couldn't double check the information due to few alive people who witnessed the crash. Mayby another trip in the future could find more accurate data.
I attached more pictures with the cross.
