(StraightNews.org) – A team of explorers said it has found the wreckage of Amelia Earhart’s plane. Tony Romeo and his colleagues from Deep Sea Vision, an ocean exploration company based in South Carolina, say they have captured sonar images of the aircraft on the floor of the Pacific Ocean. The discovery was made using a high-tech underwater drone that surveyed 5,200 square miles of ocean floor between September and December last year.
The plane-like object was seen in the waters between Australia and Hawaii, around 100 miles off the coast of Howland Island, which is where Earhart was due to refuel her aircraft during her ill-fated round-the-world adventure. She never arrived, and the prevailing theory is that she ran out of fuel too early, causing the plane to crash into the sea and kill both the pilot and her navigator, Fred Noonan.
Deep Sea Vision founder Mr. Romeo said he is optimistic that the mystery may now be solved. “You’d be hard-pressed to convince me that this is not an airplane and not Amelia’s plane,” he said. Other theories include the suggestion that Earhart and Noonan landed on the island but could not get off and eventually starved to death, while some believed they were taken captive by Japanese forces who were increasing their presence in the region at the time.
Kansas native Amelia Earhart took off from Miami on June 1, 1937, to begin her 29,000-mile journey worldwide. She and Noonan made several refueling stops in the following weeks before reaching New Guinea on June 29. From there, they left and headed toward Howland Island, around 2,600 miles away, but never showed up. She intermittently contacted the US Coast Guard near the island during the journey, and in one transmission, she reported that she was running out of fuel.
Earhart’s disappearance has remained an enduring mystery for decades, as no signs of her, Mr. Noonan, or the aircraft were ever found.
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