History: Amelia Earhart Plane Crash Pacific Ocean
Amelia Earhart Plane Crash Pacific Ocean: 87 years ago, the biggest mystery in the history of aviation unfolded in the Pacific Ocean when Amelia Earhart's disappearance during a flight became the subject of countless theories spanning decades. Now, a deep-sea exploration team has provided another potential clue to her small plane's wreckage with the release of a new video published on Monday.
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The team, based in Charleston, South Carolina, claims to have captured a sonar image in the Pacific Ocean that they believe depicts the wreckage of Earhart's Lockheed 10E Electra aircraft. The company, which says it scanned over 5,200 square miles of the ocean floor starting in September, posted sonar images on social media showing an object resembling a plane resting on the seabed. The 16-member team, which utilized a state-of-the-art underwater drone during the search, released a new video of their expedition on Monday, featuring analysis of the captured images by a submersible.
"After an extensive deep-sea search, a talented team of underwater robotics specialists has uncovered a sonar image that could provide the ultimate modern mystery solution – the answer to Amelia Earhart's disappearance," wrote Deep Sea Vision on Instagram.
Tony Romeo, a pilot and former American aviation investigator, told The Wall Street Journal that he funded the $11 million search by selling his commercial real estate properties. He told the Journal, "It's probably the most exciting thing I've ever done in my life." "I feel like a 10-year-old about to discover buried treasure."
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Earhart and navigator Fred Noonan disappeared on July 2, 1937, while flying over the Pacific Ocean attempting to circumnavigate the globe. They vanished without a trace during an attempted landing on Howland Island, an event that prompted the largest and most expensive search and rescue effort in American naval and coast guard history, yielding no clues. Earhart and Noonan were declared dead two years later.
Efforts to locate Earhart's plane have been made using advanced technology in multiple deep-sea searches over the years, but the aircraft has remained elusive decade after decade.
Romeo told the Journal that his team's sonar image, captured less than 100 miles from Howland Island and nearly 16,000 feet below the surface of the Pacific Ocean, holds the outline of a plane's wreckage, where Earhart and Noonan were believed to have landed and radioed for help before vanishing.
Romeo's team had not found the image in nearly three months of the trip, and it was becoming increasingly inevitable to return, he told the Journal, so they want to go back more determinedly.
Sonar experts told the Journal that only a thorough visual inspection would confirm whether the wreckage matched Earhart's Lockheed aircraft.
"There's no way to know for sure until you get a close-up look, no matter how certain it may seem physically," said Andrew Pitruska, an underwater acoustics expert.
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Speculation remains about where Earhart might have gone missing. Rick Gillespie, who has researched Earhart's lost flight for decades, told CBS News in 2018 that the plane had crashed land on the Gardner Island—known today as Nikumaroro—around 350 nautical miles from Howland Island and that he had put out a call for help nearly a week before her plane sank into the sea.
Gillespie told CBS News that only Navy's calls were heard, but also calls of dozens of people who unexpectedly picked up Earhart's transmission on their radios thousands of miles away. Reports of calls for help have been documented in places like Florida, Iowa, and Texas. A woman in Canada had heard a voice saying "We have landed in the water... we can't stay afloat much longer."
Gillespie's organization, International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery, claims they have found forensic evidence including bones on the island, which are likely to be Earhart's.
Nearly 90 years later, no wreckage has been found, and Romeo believes his team's sonar image may finally reveal the long-lost aircraft.
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Romeo, who joined the campaign with his two brothers who were also pilots, told the Journal that their piloting skills had provided a new perspective on the search.
"We've always felt that a group of pilots could solve this problem, not sailors," Romeo told the Journal.