In a significant development in one of aviation’s greatest mysteries, Deep Sea Vision, an ocean exploration company based in South Carolina, revealed on Saturday that it has captured compelling sonar images that could potentially be the wreckage of Amelia Earhart’s aircraft at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean.
The breakthrough was made possible by a high-tech unmanned underwater drone and a 16-member crew that surveyed over 5,200 square miles of the ocean floor between September and December.
The sonar images revealed a plane-shaped object located between Australia and Hawaii, approximately 100 miles off Howland Island, the intended refueling point for Earhart and her navigator, Fred Noonan. This is the area where the aviation pioneers were last heard from before disappearing in 1937.
Deep Sea Vision founder, Tony Romeo, expressed optimism about the findings, noting that the shape of the object closely resembles Earhart’s Lockheed Electra in both size and tail.
“All that combined, you’d be hard-pressed to convince me that this is not an airplane and not Amelia’s plane,” said Romeo.
The Deep Sea Vision team plans to conduct further investigations in the area where the images were captured later this year.
Earhart and Noonan’s disappearance nearly a century ago during their attempt to circumnavigate the globe has been one of the enduring mysteries of the 20th century. Despite various theories and speculations, neither their bodies nor their plane have been definitively located.
Tony Romeo, a former U.S. Air Force intelligence officer turned ocean explorer, sold his real estate company’s assets in 2022 to establish Deep Sea Vision. His team discovered the sonar images a month into their expedition but only realized the significance of their find on the last day of their trip.
“It was really a surreal moment,” Romeo recounted.
The potential discovery of Earhart’s plane at the ocean floor aligns with the theory that the aircraft ran out of fuel and sank. Other theories suggest that Earhart and Noonan may have landed on an island and perished or were taken by Japanese forces expanding in the region.
While acknowledging the various contributions to the Amelia Earhart story, Romeo emphasized the significance of her legacy as a skilled pilot. The investigation continues, offering new hope for solving a mystery that has captivated the world for decades.
