Six decades after his disappearance off the coast of Florida, the family of Canadian naval pilot Lt. Barry Troy is finally able to put their brother’s memory to rest.

On Feb. 25, 1958, Lt. Troy took off from a Florida air force base in a F2H-3 Banshee during a training exercise with three other jets. As they turned to sea, a thick wall of fog rolled in and Troy’s plane went off course to avoid a collision, only to crash into the ocean.

After two weeks of searching, the only evidence of Lt. Troy’s plane the U.S. Navy could find was a helmet, log book, and a few pieces of metal, leaving Lt. Troy’s family with grief, heartbreak, and unanswered questions.

"For months, even years, I kept expecting we would hear he was on a desert island or something and he was fine," Troy's younger sister, Sandra Berry told CTV Ottawa. "It was a fantasy that went on and on.”

But the fantasy came to an end last September, when Troy’s family received a call from reporters in Florida, after a park ranger made a discovery that finally shed light on the mysterious disappearance.

Some of Lt. Troy’s gear – parachute rigging, a harness, unidentified pieces of metal, and a parachute harness embroidered with his name, had washed up on the beach following hurricanes Irma and Maria.

"We happened to find this ball of stuff on the high water line. I know I drove past it at least five times. Other rangers said they drove past it, too," ranger Zack Johnson told News4JAX, the Florida news agency that first reported the story in September.

Seven months after that discovery, the artifacts of the crash have been returned to the family at a ceremony put on by the Royal Canadian Air Force and Royal Canadian Navy to honour the memory of Lt. Troy.

"You never really get closure," Dick Troy, Lt. Troy’s brother said. "Not for us. Barry was just a special guy. He was the oldest. He was like our hero."

All but one of the artifacts recovered will be put on display at the Shearwater Aviation Museum in Nova Scotia, where Troy had been stationed before his death.

The remaining item, a small metal tube that was once part of the jet’s wing will be buried alongside Troy’s parents and a tombstone with the engraving “Lost at Sea.”

“We're going to bring it and bury it in with my mom and dad,” said Berry. “So part of him will be with them.”

With files from CTV’s Kevin Gallagher