Deep sea surveyors think they found Amelia Earhart’s plane. Sonar images from their recent expedition show what appears to be an aircraft, resting 16,000 feet deep at the bottom of the Pacific.
The pioneering aviator and her navigator, Fred Noonan, vanished 86 years ago. They were flying a Lockheed 10-E Electra, when they disappeared during an attempting to see Amelia become the first woman to fly around the world.
Many conspiracy theories have come and gone through the decades. Many researchers have also thought they found the plane before too. However, none of it has ever resulted in actually finding them or the plane.
Mystery solved?
South Carolina based Deep Sea Visions now thinks they may have done it. The 90-day expedition was led by CEO Tony Romeo. He’s also a pilot and real estate investor.
The expedition followed a theory developed in 2010 by former NASA employee and pilot, Liz Smith. She called it the “Date Line Theory,” suggesting that Noonan was exhausted after 17 hours of flying, and simply forgot to turn back the date from July 3 to July 2 as they crossed the International Date Line. Such a mistake would have caused a 60-mile navigational error.
Romeo and his 16-member crew focused their search near Howland Island, where Earhart and Noonan were headed to refuel when they disappeared. They searched more than 5,200 square miles, more than all previous searches combined.
”There’s no known other crashes in the area, and certainly not of that era or with that design of the plane’s tail that you see clearly in the image,” says Romeo.
The team used multi-million dollar sonar technology to capture images of the ocean floor. If what they found is Earhart’s plane, then it is laying almost a mile deeper than the Titanic.
The images really are interesting, and eerily similar to the plane, taking into account crash damage and decay over almost a century. Not to mention half of it is likely buried in mud. Whether it is the plane or not, the images are good enough to warrant further investigation of the site.
Next expedition plans to visit the site
Romeo and his team are already planning to do exactly that. Their next expedition will take a remotely operated submersible with cameras into the abyss, to get a closer look at what the sonar image really is, and confirm if it is in fact Earhart’s plane.
”Why can’t a group of unknowns like us go out and solve one of aviation’s greatest mysteries,” says Romeo. “If something inspires you, go do it.”
