Aviation experts and historians believe that part of Amelia Earhart plane has been discovered. On July 2, 1937, the first female to circumnavigate the world vanished somewhere along the Pacific. One of the most controversial mysteries in the history happened more than 70 years ago, when Amelia Earhart attempted to circle the globe and disappeared with her co-pilot, Fred Noonan.
International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery or TIGHAR spent almost 25 years to investigate on Earhart's case and now they are looking on the possibility that the small debris of aluminum sheet found at the Pacific atoll of Nikumaroro in 1991 belongs to Amelia's twin-engine Lockheed Electra.
Earlier, experts speculated that Amelia Earhart plane could have run out of fuel before it reaches the supply station at Howland Island so her plane crashed into the water. However, with the findings of TIGHAR, the experts are probing that it could be the same patch at the plane's navigational window.
"Its complex fingerprint of dimensions, proportions, materials and rivet patterns was as unique to Earhart's [plane] as a fingerprint is to an individual," says Ric Gillespie TIGHAR Executive Director.
Earhart was the first female aviator to fly alone across the Atlantic Ocean.
TIGHAR team inspected a Lockheed Electra being restored at Wichita Air Services in Newton, Kansas and compared the metal sheet found, labeled as the ARTIFACT 2-2-V-1 and assumed to be part of Amelia Earhart plane.
Amelia Earhart plane could be the debris found in Nikumaroro atoll, TIGHAR experts say. After the examination done in Kansas, they found that the 19-inch-wide by 23-inch-long Nikumaroro artifact matched the patch with the structural components of the Lockheed Electra being restored.
Now the new discovery links to the chances that Amelia Earhart plane could have landed in a flat coral reef in Nikumaroro where Earhart and Noonan ended as castaways. TIGHAR will continue their investigation in June 2015 with a Remote Operated Vehicle (ROV) technology supported by Nai'a, a 120-foot Fiji-based vessel to search for the wreckage at shallower depths.
