Research Team Says They May Have Found Amelia Earhart’s Plane
Has one of the most famous cases of missing persons been solved? American aviator Amelia Earhart disappeared in 1937 when attempting to become the first woman pilot to circumnavigate the globe.
The story spawned several plausible and bizarre conspiracy theories, but a sonar exploration team claims they have found a simple conclusion.
Mystery Solved?
It's known that Earhart and her navigator, Fred Noonan, were last seen on July 2, 1937, in Lae, New Guinea. The next stop was Howland Island, but they never arrived. Likely, the plane went down in the Pacific Ocean, somewhere between those two land points.
This week, sonar search team Deep Sea Vision, based in Charlestown, South Carolina, claimed to have captured an image of Amelia Earhart's doomed Lockheed 10E Electra plane.
After scanning over 5,000 square miles of the Pacific Ocean Floor from September 2023, Deep Sea Vision released an image of an object resting on the seabed. It is plane-shaped, but does this conclusively prove that the mystery is solved?
Pioneer and Record Breaker
Amelia Earhart would have added to a string of notable landmark achievements if her final mission had been successful. When she took her first flight as a passenger in 1920, she said: “As soon as we left the ground, I knew I myself had to fly.”
Her groundbreaking year came in 1932 when she became the first woman, and the second of all time, to fly solo, nonstop across the Atlantic.
The Fateful Flight
Earhart and Noonan embarked on their final voyage on May 21, 1937. They began in Oakland. California and flew down to Miami. It was there that Amelia Earhart gave the haunting quote, “I have a feeling that there is just one more flight in my system.”
On June 29, the pair reached New Guinea. On July 2, they departed for their next refueling stop but never made it. On July 18, 1937, following an extensive search, Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan were declared lost at sea.
Japan and Other Conspiracy Theories
2017, a photograph emerged, claiming to prove an old conspiracy theory surrounding Amelia Earhart's disappearance. The original suggestion is that Earhart and Noonan made it to Japanese territory in the South Seas Mandate.
The pair were taken prisoner and died in Japanese custody. The grainy photo claims to be from Jaluit Atoll on the Marshall Islands, and it shows a woman vaguely matching Amelia Earhart's appearance.
Experts, however, were unconvinced, as the picture was undated, the location needed to be clarified, and the woman needed to be a solid match for known photographs of Earhart.
Other conspiracy theories claim that Amelia Earhart worked as a broadcaster for Japanese propaganda and that she was a spy under the Roosevelt administration. All are possible but unlikely, so what do scientists need to establish the truth behind the sonar images?
Next Steps
The blurred photograph doesn't offer clear proof but is a cause for further investigation. Dorothy Cochrane of the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum described it as “an intriguing image,” declaring it worthy of a second look.
When the team discovered the photo, their camera had broken, and they could not return to the site. However, there is talk of a further mission to offer a clearer picture of what's down there.
The object lies around 100 miles off the coast of Howard Island, so its location fits. Explorer David Jourdan told Post and Courier that future missions would aim to identify the object's registration number or detailed dimensions to see if it tallies with Earhart's aircraft.
Nothing is certain yet, but we may be on the verge of solving one of the greatest aviation mysteries ever.
