TIGHAR Investigators Identify Fragment Of Amelia Earhart's Missing Plane

Chuck Bednar for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online

Researchers believe that they have identified a piece of the airplane flown by Amelia Earhart when she vanished over the Pacific Ocean in 1937 during a failed attempt to fly around the world, various media outlets are reporting.

According to Rossella Lorenzi of Discovery News, which broke the story Tuesday night, an investigation by the International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery (TIGHAR) found that a small piece of aluminum sheeting found on the Pacific atoll Nikumaroro in 1991 was identified “to a high degree of certainty” as belonging to Earhart’s craft.

Earhart vanished on July 2, 1937 while flying from New Guinea to Howland Island as part of her attempt to become the first woman to circumnavigate the globe, and TIGHAR has been working for years to solve the mystery of her disappearance. Now, they report that the aluminum debris was likely part of her twin-engine Lockheed Electra.

TIGHAR researchers said that the aluminum sheet was a patch of metal that had been installed by Earhart during an eight-day stay in Miami – the fourth stop on her attempt to fly around the world, Lorenzi explained. The sheet was being used as a patch to replace a navigational window before departing for San Juan, Puerto Rico, as evidenced by a photograph published in the June 1, 1937 edition of the Miami Herald.

“The Miami Patch was an expedient field repair. Its complex fingerprint of dimensions, proportions, materials and rivet patterns was as unique to Earhart’s Electra as a fingerprint is to an individual,” TIGHAR executive director Ric Gillespie told Discovery News. “This is the first time an artifact found on Nikumaroro has been shown to have a direct link to Amelia Earhart.”

TIGHAR investigators from the group compared the dimensions of the 19-inch-wide by 23-inch-long metal sheet, also known as Artifact 2-2-V-1, to the structural components of a Lockheed Electra being restored at Wichita Air Services in Newton, Kansas, Lorenzi said. The rivet pattern and other features of the artifact matched that of both the patch and the aircraft being restored, the organization said in a detailed report posted on its website.

Nikumaroro had long been suspected as a place that Earhart and her navigator, Fred Noonan, may have made a forced landing, according to NBC News. In fact, Gillespie said that TIGHAR had previously discovered archival records describing the partial skeleton and campsite of an unknown female on the atoll, and analysis of a 1937 photo taken months after the disappearance depicts what many believe was the landing gear of her plane.

“The breakthrough would prove that, contrary to what was generally believed, Earhart and her navigator, Fred Noonan, did not crash in the Pacific Ocean, running out of fuel somewhere near their target destination of Howland Island,” Lorenzi said. “Instead, they made a forced landing on Nikumaroro’ smooth, flat coral reef. The two became castaways and eventually died on the atoll, which is some 350 miles southeast of Howland Island.”

Gillespie and his team have made a total of 10 archaeological expeditions to the atoll, having discovered a number of artifacts the Discovery News reporter said “provide strong circumstantial evidence for a castaway presence.” The TIGHAR executive director said that he believed that the aviatrix sent radio distress signals for at least five nights before rising tides and surf would have washed her plane into the ocean.

TIGHAR researchers will return to Nikumaroro in June 2015 to investigate an object resting at a depth of 600 feet at the base of an offshore cliff where they believe Earhart’s Electra was carried into the ocean, noted Lorenzi. They believe that the results on the new Artifact 2-2-V-1 analysis increases the likelihood that this object is the rest of her plane, and plan to use Remote Operated Vehicle (ROV) technology to search for wreckage during that 24-day expedition.

—–

Join Amazon Student – FREE Two-Day Shipping for College Students

—–

Follow redOrbit on Twitter, Facebook and Pinterest.