Resident Has Been Collecting SBD-5 Parts From His Property For Years

The U.S. Navy has sent a team of historians and archaeologists along with a cadaver dog to Osteen, FL to investigate what appears to be an accident involving an SBD-5 bomber in the 1940s.

The team is in the area between Interstates 4 and 95 west of the Canaveral National Seashore because for the past three years, local resident Randy Thomas has been finding and collecting parts from an SBD-5 outside his home. The parts were apparently overlooked when the accident was cleaned up 70 years ago.

Brighthouse Cable News Channel 13 reports that the Navy has very little information about the accident, and does not know with certainty who was flying the plane when it went down. Lt. Cmdr Heidi Lenzini, a naval history and heritage spokeswoman, said that "We have six possibilities" for the pilot, and "we want to make sure that any possible remains, if there are any, are handled is a respectful manner."

The investigative team is searching Thomas' property for more than just additional parts of the airplane. A cadaver dog trained to find human remains is also part of the effort in hopes of identifying the pilot who did not return from a training mission.

Navy archaeologist George Schwartz said that if human remains are found then "everything would stop" and the state medical examiner would be called.

Thomas said that if the pilot is identified, he plans to erect a memorial on the spot where his remains are found.

(SBD-5 pictured in file photo)

FMI: www.history.navy.mil