Many vacationers head to Florida to relax on the beach, swim in the ocean or visit tourist attractions. AP Biology and AP Environmental Science teacher Wes Kirpach goes there for other reasons. Over the summer Wes, his wife Kerry Kirpach and his mother-in-law Paula Pratt discovered the remains of a World War II fighter aircraft while diving off of the coast of Venice, Florida.

“It’s an exciting discovery,” senior James Lee said. “He goes to Florida every year to find shark teeth and he just happened to find a World War II plane this year. It’s amazing because it’s finding a piece of history.”

The Kirpachs thought at first that they had stumbled upon a shipwreck or commercial crab trap and investigated further.

“It wasn’t until I looked down at the sand below me and realized that it was all metal that I came to the conclusion that it was most likely an airplane of some kind,” Kerry said. “It had the unmistakable bomber look.”

The plane looked the worse for wear, with most of the elements of the cockpit missing. The left wing, tail, engine and propeller had also disappeared.

“This thing was likely looted illegally for years and years by divers,” Wes said. “That’s why it’s in such bad shape – that and the 70 years it spent in the ocean.”

After searching Naval records, the Kirpachs found documentation of a plane going down in the Gulf of Mexico just one and a half miles from the Venice airfield, which served as an army airfield at the time.

“The plane had two supercharger tubes that went on either side of the cockpit,” Wes said. “That helped us identify the plane as a P-47 and then we just used the records to fill in the blanks.”

The pilot was identified as Thomas Jefferson Curtis Schatzman, who recently passed away at the age of 92.

“He survived the crash, fought the Japanese in the Pacific, was shot down in the Pacific by a Japanese Mitsubishi Zero plane, and survived that crash too,” Wes said.

The plane, a P-47D Thunderbolt, was one of the most famous United States Army Air Force (USAAF) fighters of World War II. Nearly a third of the 15,683 P-47s built during the war were lost in action.

“There are very few of these planes remaining,” Wes said. “Most of those planes that were built at the time were used and disposed of in a pretty violent way: shot down, blown up, whatever the case happened to be. Anytime you can actually find one of these World War II planes, it’s significant.”

Future plans concerning the plane are uncertain as excavating it will be costly. Venice is planning on expanding its museum and would like the plane to be the centerpiece of the Venice Army Airfield exhibit.

“More than likely the city of Venice is going to raise the money to excavate it,” Wes said. “If they can’t raise the money, a private organization might do so. There’s a place near Disney, the Fantasy of Flight Museum, and they might have the resources to extract it from the ocean floor and donate it to Venice.”

The Kirpachs plan to return to the site of the wreck next summer, this time with reporters and the museum director. They would also like to search for any other components that may be out there.

“I think it’s really great that with today’s technology, a high school teacher can discover something that makes a worldwide impact,” junior Izzy Tunnell said.

This is just the latest in the Kirpach’s list of discoveries, among which are 11,000-year-old human remains and a new species of crocodile that was named after them.

“I really couldn’t believe that we basically ran across this wreckage in an area that we have been diving for five years,” Kerry said. “We never thought we would be part of a discovery like this.”