Pacific Ocean

Is this Amelia Earhart's long-lost plane? Explorer believes he's solved the great mystery

“There’s no other known crashes in the area, and certainly not of that era in that kind of design with the tail that you see clearly in the image,” Tony Romeo, CEO of Deep Sea Vision, said on the discovery.

A pilot and explorer who embarked on an $11 million-expedition at sea believes he has solved one of the world’s greatest mysteries: the final resting place of Amelia Earhart’s plane that vanished in 1937. 

Tony Romeo, a former U.S. Air Force intelligence officer and CEO of Deep Sea Vision, sold commercial real estate to fund his deep-sea exploration of the Pacific Ocean last year, combing the ocean floor with sonar technology in the suspected area of Earhart's crash.

His team reviewed sonar data in December caught by an under-water drone from his research voyage and found a startling image: a blurry plane-like shape Romeo believes is Earhart's twin engine Lockheed 10-E Electra.

The image was taken about 100 miles from Howland Island, halfway between Australia and Hawaii.

Earhart and her navigator, Fred Noonan, were expected to land there in July 1937 for a refueling stop in her bid to be the first female pilot to circumvent the globe — but never made it.

Read the full story here at NBCNews.com.

Copyright NBC News
Contact Us