The end of more than 85 years of mystery?
An American explorer claims to have solved one of the most mysterious plane disappearances of the 20th century, that of the plane of pioneer Amelia Earhart in July 1937, reports the American channel NBC.
The first woman to cross the Atlantic Ocean by plane in 1928, American Amelia Earhart is one of the most important women in the history of aviation.
Born in 1897, she disappeared shortly before her 40th birthday, on July 2, 1937, over the Pacific Ocean.
She was last seen in the town of Lae in Papua New Guinea, while attempting to complete a world tour with her navigator Fred Noonan.
They were expected on Howland Island, in the heart of the Pacific, halfway between Australia and Hawaii.
An expedition carried out over 13,000 km2
But their plane, a Lockheed 10-E Electra, never landed on this tiny island of 2.6 km2.
With no bodies or remains from the plane, US authorities declared Amelia Earhart dead two years after the crash, concluding it was an accident in the Pacific Ocean.
Since then, an immense mystery has hovered over the circumstances of this disappearance, but also over the exact location of the cabin of Amelia Earhart's plane.
An expedition led by the American Tony Romero could provide new pieces to try to solve the puzzle.
This former American Air Force intelligence officer created Deep Sea Vision a few years ago, a company that organizes explorations in the depths of the Pacific Ocean.
It was in December that he used sonar in an area believed to be the crash area.
With his team, they surveyed 13,000 km2 using an underwater drone and analyzed the data collected.
The operation, which cost a whopping $11 million, may have finally located the wreck of the aviator's Lockheed 10-E Electra, at a depth of 5,000 m according to the Wall Street Journal.
Tony Romero posted an image of his findings on Instagram.
Although it is vague, the explorer has very strong presumptions that it is indeed Amelia Earhart's plane, due to the particular shape of the aircraft but also its location, approximately 160 km from Howland Island.
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New research carried out in the coming months
"You're going to have a hard time convincing me that it's anything other than a plane, number one, and number two, that it's not Amelia's plane," he told NBC during a interview broadcast this Monday.
“There are no other known crashes in the area, and certainly none from this era with this type of tail design that is clearly seen in the image,” he added.
The Deep Sea Vision team is expected to carry out further on-site exploration this year or next to bring back new site images of this supposed wreck.
“The next step is verification, and there are a lot of things we need to verify.
It also seems that there is damage, but it has been there for 97 years,” he recalled.