Piece of crashed Texas plane found on California coast

HOUSTON (KTRK) -- It was a surprise of a lifetime.

A man in California recognizing a piece of an airplane that washed up on a beach that belonged to his friend here in Houston.

Here's what's interesting: the plane crashed in Porter more than 6 years ago. So how did that happen?

The plane went down in a neighborhood with no river that could carry the plane to the Gulf, but some how, it ended up on the coast of California.

Court Koenning was the pilot of the plane that went down in a backyard back in 2010.

He somehow survived the crash with severe facial injuries and ended up in the hospital for weeks.

"I have been flying for 20 years, when the plane wouldn't settle down, I decided to go around," Koenning said, in a YouTube video.

"As I put the power back in and the flaps back up, I tried to climb back up, it wasn't climbing. I believe the wind changed directions of me, and I begin to hear trees hit the bottom of the plane."

The plane wreckage was taken to a salvage yard in Houston and then, years later, started a journey that saw a large section end up on a California beach.

"It's just speculation," Koenning says. "It was shipped, maybe from a port in San Diego, to somewhere on the other side of the world and for some reason, fell off the ship."

Incredibly, it was a friend of Koenning in California who saw the wreckage during a news report and recognized the tail number.

He then called Houston to let Koenning know the aircraft's journey is not over yet.