Explorer believes he found Amelia Earhart's lost plane in the Pacific
 

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

“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,” said Tony Romeo, CEO of Deep Sea Vision.


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

His team reviewed sonar data in December caught by an underwater 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 circumnavigate the globe — but they never made it.

She was declared dead two years later, after the U.S. concluded she had crashed somewhere in the Pacific Ocean, and her remains were never found.

While the image is blurry, Romeo believes it is Earhart's aircraft, given its unique shape.

“Well, you’d be hard-pressed to convince me that’s anything but an aircraft, for one, and two, that it’s not Amelia’s aircraft,” he told NBC's "TODAY" show in an interview that aired Monday.

“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,” he added.

While it's too soon to determine whether it is indeed the long-lost aircraft, it's an exciting prospect.

Romeo's team plans to return to the site this year or early next year with a camera and a remotely operated vehicle to snap better images of the site.

“The next step is confirmation, and there’s a lot we need to know about it. And it looks like there’s some damage. I mean, it's been sitting there for 87 years at this point,” he said.

And returning is no easy, or cheap, feat, as the voyage requires expensive high-tech gear. Romeo's voyage used an underwater Hugin drone manufactured by the Norwegian company Kongsberg, The Wall Street Journal reported.

In his last voyage, the expedition used an uncrewed submersible to scan 5,200 square miles of ocean floor. The image of the suspected plane was found resting 5,000 meters underwater, the Journal reported.

“I think myself that it is the great mystery of all time," Romeo said. "Certainly the most enduring aviation mystery of all time."


https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/e...fic-rcna136134

I used to like Tony Romeo, but I feel like he’s been phoning it in the last few years.

Some moron should take a small group in a sub made out of carbon fiber and manuevered by a Nintendo 64 controller down to the crash site. What could go wrong?

IDK, the wings don't look like it's a Lockheed 10-E Electra. They're more swept back...could be damage, I suppose.

https://cdn4.volusion.store/7z62e-xv...RGRA1400-6.jpg

That would be pretty amazing if they are somehow able to confirm it was Amelia Earhart.

How did it remain somewhat intact

Many people have said the same thing over the years. Good Luck Millionaire.

Water landing and sinking I suppose?

That Romeo fellow says the unique tail design means it could be no other type of plane.

Someone else threw some cold water on him in the Telegraph:

Exactly.

I mean I think it would be cool as hell if the guy found it, but we've had a LOT of false positives over the years.

I just don't expect anything at this point.

And there area a TON of undocumented wrecks out there.

Flight 19 is a pretty well known 'lost' wing, right? And awhile ago some folks were dead certain they found a couple of the missing Avengers on the sea floor. They get out there and confirm they found Avengers.

Turns out it was an undocumented training crash of a couple Avengers. They found the ID numbers on the tail, I believe, tracked them to a couple of unaccounted for aircraft losses and realized it wasn't Flight 19.

Now a plane with the Electra's tail going down around where EA was supposed to have landed is a different creature than an Avenger going down off the coast of Florida. But I'd hesitate to say "well there were no other crashes out here..."

The odds are there were several. Planes went down a lot back then and the records just weren't great.

Hope this works out better than that History Channel debacle. They did an entire show based on some photo they were sure was Earhart that was instantly debunked as bullshit.

Certainly looks like an aircraft, I guess we'll find out when they get something down there.

Good news is you can narrow down plane types fairly easily even by looking at something simple as a bar on the landing gear. Chances of them not identifying the model is extremely low.

If it's the same model then we're talkin!

A lot of planes ended up in the ocean during WWII. Probability might say this is one of them.

Hope they find Hillary Swank..

Well that’s silly.

And they don't look wide enough, even if you 'unsweep' them.

Honestly, it looks more like an F-86 sabre. The dimensions of a Saber are more 'boxlike' in that it's about as wide as it is long. An Electra is quite a bit wider than it is long.

Australia flew the Sabre. Obviously we did as well. We also had a carrier capable version of the Sabre (the Fury) that we probably had out in the Pacific; we had over 1,000 of those at various points, I'm sure one went down in the Pacific and if it's testing/training, we're not gonna make a big show of it.

If I'm guessing, that's some fighter that went down out there. I'll guess Sabre or one of its many variants.

And I'm not convinced that image is of a twin tail aircraft. It's not exactly 4k. I definitely looks more like the plane you mentioned.

Early next year??

Sell something else and get your ass back out there and entertain us with your findings!

Yeah, the swept wing thing is a killer for me. They're swept at the same angle and it wouldn't be the case if it was because of damage.

It would be exciting. Growing up in Kansas I was a big fan of hers as a kid. Plus my grandpa built airplanes, so I was a bit of a homer. It would be cool as hell.

But like Straight, No Chaser said, good luck Millionaire.

What is the name of that company that rents out submarines for trips to the deep?

Oh look it's this story again.

Oh shit, i bet it was buried next to a chargers super bowl ring

I think they're out of business now. At least I hope they are.

Yeah, and I don't see wings bending like that and staying attached in most crash scenarios. They're either going to break off when the plane hits the water or they're going to remain intact if it was a soft landing. And even if they somehow did the "bend but don't break" thing, the odds are miniscule that they would bend at the same angle.

This is a publicity thing.

It’s fun to follow like other unsolved high profile events. I’ll believe it when it’s proven.

I wonder if it's possible this is a distortion of the sonar image or deterioration of the wreckage... something of that nature.

I wouldn't be putting up money for an expedition to the site but it's an interesting mystery.

Maaaaybe. I'm skeptical, but they presumably know enough about this stuff that perhaps there's some explanation for it.

Really be cool if this mystery could get solved. Prob won't though. The oceans a big place. The thought that she made it to a remote island and survived for a some period always intrigued me. The whole Cast Away thing

MMMMAHHHH EEEEEE AHHHHIIIIII DON'T KNOW JIM!!!! IT'S MAYBE? AHHHEEEIIIITT'S AH I THINK HE! I THINK IT MIGHT BE AHMEEEELIA'S PLANE, BUT AGAIN, AHHHH - OH I DUNNO JIM!!!

I always bought into the Gardner Island crash theory.

Came down for a hard landing on a reef and survived (question as to whether or not Noonan did). Eventually she (or they) died of dehydration and scavenging coconut crabs took care of the rest, including scattering the remains.

The plane crashing on a reef would've eventually been buffeted to pieces, scattered and grown over.

IIII DUNNNNO JIMMMMMM!!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Damn beat me to it lol.


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Does the article really not mention how deep down it is?

5,000 meters:

https://www.chiefsplanet.com/BB/show...postcount=3838

That's pretty damn deep. No wonder they haven't gotten an ROV down there yet.

Nothing three guys in a cardboard tube and an atari joystick couldn't handle.

This time with more aluminum lol!

If that dude goes manned craft to look at it he'll find a free Darwin award down there as well LOL.

They need to send a privately owned submersible down there. They've had great success lately.

Let's go over to former deep sea unfound item Titanic for analysis. Titanic what did you see?

Well, he's wrong. It's not her plane. But please, proceed.

I suppose she could've made a water landing, made it to Nokumaroro Island, and then died there of starvation/disease. Who knows. Probably just crashed though

Not if she ate Noonan...

Would have to be deep.

Anything on a coastal shelf - probably up to 150 feet or less - would've been beaten to hell by wave action.

If she put it down on a reef, it's gone. If she put it into the drink in deep water, it could've made it to the bottom somewhat intact and stayed that way over time.

Looks like it crashed into a pool of ravens fans tears tbh. Saltier than expected.

I thought the same thing. Furthermore, if the wings were damaged badly enough to be bent back like that, it would be more likely that they would have separated from the aircraft during the descent to the bottom. The sweep of the wings is also consistent on both sides. Why would damage to both wings be so consistent? It looks much more like a F86 with the wings attached than an Electra that just so happened to sustain identical damage to both wings that caused neither to separate.

ETA - Looking further at the sonar picture convinces me even more that it's a F-86. You can see the bubble canopy positioned precisely where it would be in relation to the point where the wings are joined with the fuselage. Furthermore, Earhart's Electra had twin vertical stabilizers that were out at the ends of the horizontal stabilizers. In the sonar picture you can clearly see a bright line that would be the top of the vertical stabilizer positioned down the centerline of the aircraft which is consistent with a F-86. It may turn out that the sonar picture is of another aircraft than a F-86, or maybe something else entirely, but there is virtually 0 chance that that is the wreckage of an Electra.

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Romeo style analysis

She was notably an excellent pilot; I highly doubt she would’ve crashed her plane hard enough to bend the wings back like that. She would’ve put it down softly so she could escape before wave action filled the plane and sunk it.

Hey wait! You don't believe that a deep sea sonar image of a plane shaped item ISN'T one of the most famous missing planes in history?

C'mon now! What else could it be!?

Bring her in for a look?

It could be the remains of any plane

How dare we question this multimillionaire who made his money in real estate. We the public should fund his Pacific Ocean adventure because his sonar scan hunch it Amelias Airplane. My check is in the mail. Seems he can't get funding on his hunch so last resort is to beg the public for donations.

If there's anything I've learned from watching Expedition Unknown, it's always some other plane or boat than the one they're looking for.

Hell of a show! I recommend to everyone!

Yeah I have no idea how I missed it until a year ago. But I've now binged every episode at least once.

Wouldn't it be cool if they found her snuggling with Jimmy Hoffa?

Bigfoot and Amelia are hanging out