Amelia Earhart’s plane, one of the most elusive mysteries of the 20th century, may have been finally located in the Pacific Ocean.
Tony Romeo, former U.S. Air Force intelligence officer and ocean explorer, says he has found a sonar image of an object that resembles Earhart’s Lockheed 10-E Electra aircraft, near Howland Island, where she was last heard from.
Amelia Earhart was a pioneering aviator and feminist icon who disappeared in 1937, along with her navigator Fred Noonan, during her attempt to become the first woman to fly around the world. Despite numerous searches and theories, no conclusive evidence of her fate has ever been found.
Romeo says he has spent $11 million and two years of his life to search for Earhart’s plane using a state-of-the-art underwater drone and a team of 16 people. He says he launched his expedition from Tarawa, Kiribati, in September 2023, and scanned more than 5,200 square miles of ocean floor, before finding the sonar image in December 2023.
The image, which he posted on his Instagram account, shows a blurry mass that is about the same size and shape as Earhart’s plane, resting some 5,000 meters underwater, within 100 miles of Howland Island.
“This is maybe the most exciting thing I’ll ever do in my life,” Romeo told the Wall Street Journal. “I feel like a 10-year-old going on a treasure hunt.”
Romeo says he is optimistic that the object is Earhart’s plane, but he is not certain yet. He plans to return to the site this year, with a camera, to get a clearer picture and look for more clues, such as the plane’s tail number: NR16020.
“I think myself, that it is the great mystery of all time…Certainly the most enduring aviation mystery of all time.”
