A World War II naval dive bomber was recovered from the bottom of Lake Michigan today.

A WWII naval training plane that crashed into Lake Michigan is brought to land at Waukegan Harbor this morning. (Antonio Perez/Chicago Tribune)

A World War II naval dive bomber was recovered from the bottom of Lake Michigan today, 65 years after it crashed on a training mission off Waukegan.
It's known that the pilot survived, but it's not clear which aircraft this is, because definitive identification numbers can't be found on the plane.

Nevertheless a marine salvage company in Illinios, A&T, working with a naval aviation museum, found the aircraft using sidescan sonar in 315 feet of water, 27 miles out from Waukegan.

The plane was lifted from the bottom Thursday using an airbag and towed underwater into Waukegan Harbor this morning, where the j ob was completed.

At 10:15 a.m. a Larsen marine crane began lifting the aircraft from the water and for the next half hour slowly raised it as brown water and black mud poured out of it. At 10:46 a.m., the crane operator and handlers with ropes set the plane down on a blue tarpaulin.

The aircraft was lost during training operations during World War II when naval pilots were being trained out of Chicago's Navy Pier for takeoffs and landings on aircraft carriers.

This plane was one of nearly 100 that were lost during those exercises. About 40 of them have been recovered.

This morning, as the plane was lifted out of the water and gently angled toward touchdown on dry land, A&T diving engineer Keith Pearson looked at the plane with satisfaction. "This thing crashed and has been under water [a long time]. I think it looks pretty darn good, doesn't it?"

--James Janega