Second oxygen mask found on Grand Strand beach
MURRELLS INLET, S.C. (WPDE) — A second airplane oxygen mask has turned up in the Myrtle Beach area this month.
Amy Moss, of Murrells Inlet, said she was walking her dog with her family, looking for shells on New Year's Day, when she noticed the mask sticking out of the dune.
Moss decided to keep it, not realizing how significant the find would become.
RELATED: Apparent airplane oxygen mask washes ashore in Garden City
“[My daughter] was like, 'You’re going to carry that back?' I’m was like 'Yes! I’m going to carry that back,'” Moss recalled.
Moss said she tried to do some research but wasn't successful.
During a conversation over dinner Tuesday night, Moss said she saw ABC 15's Facebook post about another oxygen mask being found in Garden City, which sparked the memory of her find.
“I was just really excited, ‘Oh my gosh, this came from something and someone else found it, too,'" she said.
Aviation analyst: 'It's possible."
ABC 15 contacted ABC News' aviation analyst, John Nance, for more information about the masks and to inquire about the possibility of being connected to a plane that disappeared after crashing off the coast of Charleston in October.
Nance said both of the masks likely came from the same crash and were manufactured specifically for private aircraft.
"[The plane model is] very compatible with the idea of having passenger oxygen masks on board," Nance explained.
He specified that the connection was a possibility but not a certainty.
"There are not that many of these masks around. This is not a 20,000 or 50,000 item stock."
Coast Guard and NTSB investigators believed the plane, a Piper PA-31, landed intact, after not finding any sign of the aircraft or debris during the two-day search.
Nance said some pieces of the plane would most likely be floating somewhere in the ocean.
"When an airplane hits the water intact, there will be a debris field," he said. "It may be very small and it may be very contained, but there will be a debris field."
According to a label on the mask Moss found, it was manufactured in January 1981. That's a few years after the plane was manufactured-- and the same year that another plane, which crashed off of Springmaid Pier last year, was built.
Nance said he would expect more debris to wash up along the Grand Strand in the near future if it was coming from the Charleston-area crash.
Brooke Hensley, the daughter of one of the passengers on board that airplane, said she was glad people were paying attention to what was washing up on the beach, even if it wasn't connected to her father's disappearance.
"There is always a possibility someone could find something," she said. "At least now people will know how important strange items on the beach could be."
Hensley encouraged people to hang on to the strange items they come across and email to her at N555PMInfo@gmail.com if they believe they've found a piece of the missing plane.
