What happened to Amelia Earhart, the famed aviator whose plane disappeared in 1937 as she was trying to fly around the world? After surveying 5,200 square miles of the Pacific Ocean, searchers say they may have picked up the sonar signature of Earhart’s sunken aircraft.
If their hypothesis holds up, the find could well solve one of the aviation world’s greatest mysteries. But if it doesn’t hold up, it wouldn’t be the first dead end in the 87-year-long search.
The 90-day sonar survey was conducted last year by Deep Sea Vision, a team of underwater archaeologists and robotics experts led by Tony Romeo, a former Air Force intelligence officer who reportedly sold his real estate investments to fund the $11 million expedition.
In a news release issued today, Deep Sea Vision said it made use of a customized underwater robot to search wide swaths of the ocean floor with side-scan sonar. As the survey was winding up, the team identified a blurry shape that appeared to match the dimensions of Earhart’s twin-engine Lockheed 10-E Electra.
“You’d be hard-pressed to convince me that’s anything but an aircraft, for one; and two, that it’s not Amelia’s aircraft,” Romeo said on NBC’s “Today” show.