A team of experts from South Carolina have found what appears to be American aviator Amelia Earhart’s long-lost plane resting on the bottom of the Pacific Ocean.
Deep Sea Vision (DSV) conducted an extensive deep-water search using marine robotics to scan more than 5,200 square miles of the Pacific Ocean floor, where they believe Ms. Earheart’s plane went down nearly 90 years ago, the company said in a press release emailed to the Epoch Times.
On Sunday, Jan. 28, underwater archaeologists released sonar images of what appears to be an airplane fitting the Lockheed Electra 10E flown by Ms. Earhart when she vanished on July 2, 1937. The plane-shaped images were captured about 100 miles from Howland Island, about midway between Hawaii and Australia.
Tony Romeo, a former Air Force intelligence officer and CEO of Deep Sea Vision, told Fox News that the found wreckage is resting on the ocean floor at a depth of about 15,000 feet, adding that it would take some effort and special equipment to reach it.
Mr. Romeo, a private pilot, said he comes from an aviation family and has been “fascinated” with Ms. Earhart’s story since he was a kid. A couple of years ago, he left his career in commercial real estate and set out on a mission to unravel one of aviation’s most intriguing mysteries.
“For her to go missing was unthinkable,” Mr. Romeo told The Wall Street Journal. “Imagine Taylor Swift just disappearing today.”
In their pursuit of the missing aircraft, the DSV explorers said they made calculations using the “Date Line Theory,” a method originally theorized by former NASA employee and amateur pilot Liz Smith.
“Smith suggested that Amelia’s navigator, Fred Noonan, miscalculated his celestial star navigation by simply forgetting to turn back the date from July 3 to July 2 as they flew across the Date Line, creating a westward navigation error of 60 miles,” according to the release.
Mr. Romeo and his brother, Lloyd Romeo, believe that after “17 hours of exhausting flying,” it was possible that Mr. Noonan could have made such an error. So, they dug into the celestial math using the Date Line Theory.
Even after 87 years, the area described by the Date Line Theory had not been searched so the DSV team scoured the ocean floor using “their secret weapon, the HUGIN 6000 ... an autonomous underwater marvel, modified by their own hands to outperform any underwater submersible used before,” the company said.
“We always felt that she [Earhart] would have made every attempt to land the aircraft gently on the water, and the aircraft signature that we see in the sonar image suggests that may be the case.”
The team is working with experts, including the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum, to validate their findings.
“We are intrigued with DSV’s initial imagery and believe it merits another expedition in the continuing search for Amelia Earhart’s aircraft near Howland Island,” said Dorothy Cochrane, Aeronautics Curator at the Smithsonian.
Mysterious Disappearance
On June 1, 1937, Ms. Earhart and her navigator, Fred Noonan, took off from Miami, Florida, on her mission to become the first female pilot to fly around the world.On July 2, the pair departed for their next destination, Howland Island, a tiny mid-Pacific island approximately 2,600 miles from Lae, but they never arrived. The flight was expected to be difficult due to weather conditions.
The U.S. Coast Guard cutter Itasca was stationed offshore of the island, while two other ships were positioned along the route to help mark the way. The ships were ordered to burn every light on board to help guide Ms. Earhart and her navigator.
“Howland is such a small spot in the Pacific that every aid to locating it must be available,” Ms. Earhart said prior to the estimated 19-hour flight.
Radio transmissions were irregular, faint, or interrupted throughout much of the flight.
Late into the flight, Ms. Earhart made contact with Itasca, reporting they were low on fuel.
“We must be on you, but we cannot see you. Fuel is running low,” she said. “Been unable to reach you by radio. We are flying at 1,000 feet.”
The ship attempted to reply to Ms. Earhart, but she did not respond. About an hour later, the ship received a final message.
“We are running north and south,” she told the ship.
Air and sea rescue teams searched extensively across 250,000 square miles of ocean. After spending nearly $4 million, the United States government ended the search operation.
In the event that the flight was Ms. Earhart’s last, she wrote a letter to her husband acknowledging her bravery.
“Please know that I am quite aware of the hazards,” she wrote. “I want to do it because I want to do it. Women must try to do things as men have tried. When they fail, their failure must be but a challenge to others.”
In 1938, a lighthouse on Howland Island was built to honor Ms. Earhart’s memory.
