What happened to Amelia Earhart remains one of the greatest aviation mysteries of all time.
But one explorer reckons he’s cracked the case.
New sonar images have been released that could reveal where Earhart’s fateful flight ended.
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Amelia Earhart disappeared in 1937, during her mission to become the first woman to fly around the world.
Since then there have been multiple speculations and conspiracy theories about what happened to her.
Despite multiple searches around the Pacific Ocean, where she was last known to be, her plane has never been found.
The mysterious nature of the case has long captured public attention, and one man made it his life’s mission to get to the bottom of it.
Tony Romeo is a real estate agent but holds a private pilot licence.
He’s so invested in Earhart’s mystery that he recently sold his business to fund his search for her plane.
“This is maybe the most exciting thing I’ll ever do in my life,” he said.
“I feel like a 10-year-old going on a treasure hunt.”
He bought a $9 million underwater drone, hired a crew of 16 people and began what would become a 100-day search.
The team scanned over 5,200 square miles of seafloor in an area between Papua New Guinea and Hawaii.
They used the Hugin 6000 drone, able to access the deepest layer of the ocean, which is 19,700 feet (or 6,000 meters).
After over three months, they collected a sonar image of what appears to be a plane on the floor of the ocean.
“In the end, we came out with an image of a target that we believe very strongly is Amelia’s aircraft,” Romeo said.
Next, Romeo would like to use an underwater camera to get a better look at what could be the wreckage.
Ultimately he would like to bring the aircraft back to shore.
This could answer questions about the crash, like whether Earhart died on impact or escaped the jet, and what exactly went wrong during the flight.
Potentially disappointing for those who believe the conspiracy theory that she was abducted by aliens.
