A team from The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery has returned to Hawaii after searching a reef on a remote Pacific atoll in search of evidence to support their theory that Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan ditched their Lockheed Electra there. The team spent about a week exploring the site with a research ship, using submersible vehicles, but reported no definitive signs of the airplane. However, the team collected “volumes of new sonar data, thousands of photographs and hours upon hours of high-definition video,” Kate Aconfora, a spokesperson for the Discovery Channel, told AVweb. The TIGHAR team will now be “reviewing and analyzing” all of that material, she said.
This was TIGHAR’s 10th expedition in search of definitive evidence of the fate of Earhart and her navigator, Fred Noonan. Nikumaroro is about 1,800 miles from Hawaii, and 400 miles away from Howland Island, which was Earhart’s planned destination. Earhart and Noonan vanished 75 years ago during an attempted round-the-world flight. Aconfora said the results of the team’s analysis will be revealed on a Discovery Channel special at 10 p.m. on Sunday, Aug. 19.
