Huge breakthrough in search for Amelia Earhart's plane after 'wreckage found on seabed'

An exploration team claims they may have found the wreckage of a plane they believe to have belonged to legendary aviator Amelia Earhart.

Already the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean, in 1937 Earhart attempted to become the first woman to fly around the world.

She and navigator Fred Noonan disappeared during the flight over the Pacific Ocean having last been seen in Lae, Papua New Guinea on 2 July.

It's been 87 years since Earhart and Noonan disappeared, but ever since then numerous theories have been suggested as to what exactly happened.

Some suggest they ran out of fuel searching for their next landing spot at Howland Island and crashed into the sea, while others theorised that they instead tried to land on another island and died there.

The conspiracy theorists have suggested that the pilot and navigator were instead captured by the Japanese, or were never found because they were eaten by crabs on whichever island they crash-landed on.

At the moment we don't know what actually happened, but that might be about to change thanks to a potential discovery.

Deep Sea Vision, an exploration team based in South Carolina, have recently claimed that they believe they've found the wreckage of Earhart's aircraft.

Taking to Instagram, they posted that they'd captured a sonar image of 'what appears to be Earhart’s Lockheed 10-E Electra'.

Starting in September of last year the team have swept 5,200 square miles of the Pacific Ocean and have now released images of what they believe to be the plane Earhart flew in her attempt to complete a circumnavigational flight.

When they first went missing a search for Earhart and Noonan lasted almost two years before they were declared dead.

Since then there have been a number of searches attempting to find the plane, and now a team believe they've seen it.

Speaking to the Wall Street Journal, pilot and former U.S. Air Force intelligence officer Tony Romeo said a submersible captured the sonar image of what they believe to be the crashed plane.

Whatever is in that image, it was found 16,000 feet below the ocean's surface and was less than 100 miles from Howland Island which Earhart and Noonan had been attempting to reach so they could refuel.

To determine whether this really is Earhart's plane or not would require a closer look as no confirmed wreckage has ever been found.

Could this be the real thing?

Featured Image Credit: Bettmann/Getty Images/X/Deepseavision

Topics: US News, History, Conspiracy Theory

Joe Harker

Joe graduated from the University of Salford with a degree in Journalism and worked for Reach before joining the LADbible Group. When not writing he enjoys the nerdier things in life like painting wargaming miniatures and chatting with other nerds on the internet. He's also spent a few years coaching fencing. Contact him via [email protected]

@MrJoeHarker