Shadows On The Ocean Floor May Point To Amelia Earhart's Electra

Sonar data recorded last summer by the research vessel Niku VII being operated by The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery (TIGHAR) may point to the remains of Amelia Earhart's Lockheed Electra on the bottom of the ocean near Gardner Island, which is now known as Nikumaroro.

The new area of interest was discovered while the TIGHAR team was reviewing HD video that was captured during the side-scan sonar search, which was not available in real time, according to a report on the TIGHAR website. In March of this year, Richard Conroy, a member of the group's Amelia Earhart Search Forum, noted an anomaly in the sonar map on an underwater cliff that had previously gone unnoticed.

While TIGHAR says that the only way to know for sure if it is the wreckage of Earhart's plane is to go back to Nikumaroro, they say it is certainly a man-made object that appears to have skidded down the underwater cliff, and it is of a size and shape that would be consistent with the Lockheed Electra. But the group says on its website that they will not be able to return until they settle debts incurred on the last trip, and raise money for the next. TIGHAR does stress that it has the exclusive permission of the Kiribate government, of which the island of Nikumaroro is a part, to conduct such investigations. That agreement was negotiated with the assistance of the U.S. government.

(Image provided by TIGHAR)

FMI: Earhart Project Update