( CNN ) -- Searchers in California say they have found and identified the wreck of a fighter jet that disappeared into the Pacific Ocean near Los Angeles International Airport nearly 54 years ago . Searchers found the wreckage of a T-33A jet on the Santa Monica Bay floor . The jet disappeared in 1955 . The searchers were looking for another missing plane when they came upon the wreckage of a Lockheed T-33A jet trainer , said Pat Macha , an aircraft archeologist who has identified about 3,700 crash sites and visited more than 800 . `` It 's a funky thing , '' Macha said Tuesday . `` You 're looking for one aircraft , and you find another . '' The T-33 disappeared shortly after taking off on an early-morning training navigation flight October 15 , 1955 , an Air Force Aircraft Accident Report says . Two crewmen were aboard . The plane had been presumed lost at sea all these years . The discovery started this year near Austin , Texas , where computer expert Gary Fabian found `` what looked like a few little pixels '' on a high-definition U.S. Geological Survey image of the Santa Monica Bay ocean floor . Fabian is the founder of a group of unpaid sleuths who discovered a missing World War I German U-boat off the California coast in 2003 . The group , known as UB88.org , has continued to search for other wrecks . Before moving to Texas , Fabian became interested in military aircraft wrecks and found Macha about five years ago in Huntington Beach , California . Macha told him about his search for the wreckage of a P-51D Mustang fighter flown by World War II Women 's Air Force Service pilot Gertrude V. `` Tommy '' Tompkins Silver . The plane was presumed lost at sea in 1944 . Of the 38 WASP pilots who lost their lives in World War II , Macha said , Silver 's is the only wreckage that has not been found . Macha has been searching for the wreckage for 11 years . Silver 's 100-year-old sister lives in Florida , Macha said , and he would like to find the wreckage so she can know what happened . From Texas , Fabian sent the map info to Ray Arntz , owner and operator of a southern California dive company and a fellow member of UB88.org . Arntz and some his employees set out to search three wrecks using side-scan sonar . Two turned out to be boats . They were n't sure about the third . `` I just grabbed a tank and went down to look at it , '' Arntz said . He saw a fairly compact debris field with a lot of aluminum , which indicated that it was an airplane . Then he saw landing gear. `` 'It 's an airplane , ' I said to myself . 'How do we go from here ? ' `` A manufacturer 's number on a feed mechanism for a 50-caliber machine gun started him and the others toward piecing together what they had found . The engine appeared to be a jet , so he knew it was n't the Mustang , which had a propeller motor . By that point , Arntz said , `` We know it 's not what we 're looking for . '' The manufacturer 's number indicated that it was a T-33 Shooting Star . Researching government documents , the searchers found that a T-33 had disappeared in the area . `` It just matched what we had , '' Arntz said . `` The T-33 was it . '' That was about a month ago . The searchers kept quiet about their find until family members could be notified . Macha said he spoke with a relative of one of the two crew members a few days ago . The Air Force accident report identifies the pilots as Lt. Richard Martin Theiler and Lt. Paul Dale Smith . Theiler had 1,244 hours of flying experience , and Smith had 430 . Another volunteer group called Missing Aircraft Search Team also helped find the wreckage . The searchers had another reason for initially keeping silent about their find . `` We 're trying to quietly do this stuff and move on so the sites do n't get ravaged , '' Arntz said . The group also found a B-36 Peacemaker bomber near San Diego last year . The plane disappeared in 1952 . For the three searchers , finding wrecks is an unpaid passion . `` We do this fairly consistently , '' said Arntz , 61 . `` As amateurs , this is our form of recreation . '' Said Fabian with a laugh , `` It 's an absolutely money-losing proposition . '' Fabian , 46 , is an ex-sports fisherman who says he has an `` obsession '' with the water and an `` interest in the maritime history of Southern California . '' Macha , 64 , says he got interested in aircraft wrecks in the 1960s when he found a crash site while working in a Boy Scout camp in the San Bernardino Mountains . There are 2,500 crash sites in California , he said , where all or parts of an airplane still remain . Some of them are chronicled on his Web site , aircraftwrecks.com .
Air Force jet that disappeared in 1955 found in Pacific Ocean near Los Angeles . Volunteer divers were looking for World War II - era plane . Searchers visited site after computer expert saw anomalies in ocean - surface image . Jet 's two crewmen were on training flight when it disappeared .