WROTENISLAND, Md. - While gathering footage for WBOC's latest aerial special, Delmarva, Beauty From Above, Chopper 16 discovered what appears to be a crashed plane in the waters of Wroten Island in Dorchester County.
The wreck site is completely surrounded by trees and marsh, so the only visibility is from above. WBOC decided to investigate where this plane came from and who it may belong to. Because the island is only a short distance away from Naval Air Station Patuxent River's flight patterns, we decided to give them a call.
After looking at our aerial footage, George Schwarz, an underwater archaeologist with the Naval History and Heritage Command in Washington, D.C., says this is a significant find.
"It's really interesting because that appears to be one of the aircraft that we've been searching for in this three or four-year-long project we've been doing in the Chesapeake Bay looking for lost Navy aircraft from the 40s and 50s," Schwarz said.
The footage has already given Schwarz clues into where the aircraft came from.
"It has NATC on the tail portion, which is Naval Air Training Center. So I think we're reasonably confident that it's a Navy aircraft," Schwarz said.
Schwarz explained that some of the Navy's documentation of missing or crashed planes wasn't extremely specific during that time period.
"As you can imagine, there were a lot of experimental aircrafts during the 40s and 50s and the Naval Air Station Patuxent River was used as a training facility. What's interesting about it is a lot of these don't exist anymore, so they became obsolete pretty quickly because the Navy learned from some of the lessons from losing some of these aircrafts as well as successful trials," Schwarz said.
Schwarz and his team are planning to visit the site in Dorchester County within the next year. Until then, Schwarz cannot confirm which particular aircraft it is.
It's important to note that the aircraft is protected under the Sunken Military Craft Act and therefore it is a federal crime to disturb it.
