The disappearance of Amelia Earhart remains one of the greatest mysteries of the 20th century, if not all time. On June 1, 1937, the legendary American aviator — who was born in Atchison, Kansas — embarked on her second attempt to become the first female pilot to fly around the world.
Somewhere over the Pacific Ocean, Earhart and her navigator, Fred Noonan, lost radio contact. Nearly a century later, Earhart and her Lockheed Electra 10-E have yet to be found.
But then, earlier this year, a hazy, plane-shaped sonar image taken from 16,000 feet below the Pacific Ocean’s surface was released to the public.
Tony Romeo is the founder of Deep Sea Vision, the exploration company behind the photo. He told KCUR's Up To Date he's almost certain what's captured is Earhart's plane.
"We like the tail. We like the size and the dimensions, and we like that it was a very sandy, smooth area," he says. "So from our vantage point — we have a little bit more information than most folks do — we feel good about it."
Pilot and documentary filmmaker Liz Smith has worked in ocean exploration for over two decades and was on an expedition in 2009 when she developed a popular theory of where Earhart could be. This idea, called The Date Line Theory, is what guided Romeo on his search.
"I've been on expeditions where the targets looked like planes and they turned out to be piles of rocks," Smith says. "And I've also seen sonar blobs that look like they're actually Roman shipwrecks."
But Smith believes it's entirely possible Deep Sea Vision has solved the seemingly unsolvable.
"I think it'll bring closure to the mystery, and it sort of allows you to celebrate Amelia and Fred's accomplishments and the incredible people that they were," she says.
Smith and Romeo will be part of the "Adventure Amelia" panel at the Amelia Earhart Hangar Museum in Atchison, Kansas, this Friday, July 19.
- Tony Romeo, CEO of Deep Sea Vision and former U.S. Air Force intelligence officer
- Liz Smith, pilot, documentary filmmaker, Date Line Theory expert
