Middle school students landed a huge surprise during a beach clean-up -- when they took off with an aircraft part.

The 12-year-olds found a piece of airplane door during an environmental day at Clearwater Beach. Now Serco officials are trying to find out if the piece of plane fell out of the sky or was simply dumped off Bermuda's shores.

Airport operations manager Lester Nelson even visited Clearwater Middle School yesterday to ask students about their surprise find.

The four-foot long white object is now on display in the school foyer, after pupils dragged it in on Friday afternoon.

Mr. Nelson said: "It's certainly an unusual find. This is not a part which has recently come from an aircraft because it appears to be an older model.

"The youngsters who found it on their clean-up were just about in line with the runway approach to the east.'' He said the part seemed to have been torn from the plane, indicating it must have been left at the nearby tip.

Officials believe the part may have been dumped by the US Navy when they occupied the St. David's base.

Another theory is that the door came from an old US Navy P-3 Orion plane.

Clearwater headteacher Charlotte Ming said: "We had an environmental clean-up day as part of a drive to give something back to the community.'' She said the students, from class M2, were now using the piece of plane to generate stories in Language Arts classes.