Amelia Earhart’s plane may have been found on ocean floor, explorer claims

Deep Sea Vision announced this week that the company may have potentially located the wreckage of Earhart's Lockheed 10-E Electra aircraft at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean.

It’s been more than 86 years since Amelia Earhart‘s plane disappeared over the Pacific Ocean in the summer of 1937 — but now, a hopeful explorer believes he may have solved the famous mystery.

Tony Romeo, CEO of Deep Sea Vision, announced this week that he and his 16-member team have potentially located the wreckage of Earhart’s Lockheed 10-E Electra aircraft at the bottom of the Pacific.

Romeo, who is a former U.S. Air Force intelligence officer, shared sonar images of a plane-shaped object that was captured as part of Deep Sea Vision’s US$11-million quest to solve the Earhart mystery.

In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, Romeo said the company’s underwater “Hugin” submersible captured the sonar image of the plane-like object, which sits about 16,000 feet (nearly 4,877 metres) below the ocean’s surface.

(For reference, the Titanic wreck lies at a depth of about 12,500 feet, or almost 3,658 metres.)

The sonar image was taken less than 100 miles (about 161 kilometres) from Howland Island, where Earheart refuelled prior to her disappearance.

Deep Sea Vision said it has scanned more than 5,200 square miles of the ocean floor since September 2023.