Expedition team claim they have 'very strong evidence' that they've found Amelia Earhart's long-lost plane

Published on Oct 06, 2025 at 2:50 AM (UTC+4)
by Claire Reid

Last updated on Oct 06, 2025 at 2:50 AM (UTC+4)
Edited by Claire Reid

Researchers are set to fly to a remote island after discovering ‘very, very strong evidence’ that they have found Amelia Earhart’s long-lost plane.

Earhart was an aviation pioneer who set numerous records, including being the first female aviator to fly solo non-stop across the Atlantic Ocean.

However, on July 2 1937, tragedy struck while she was making an attempt to become the first female pilot to circumnavigate the world. 

Earhart was flying a Lockheed Electra 10e when she and navigator Fred Noonan suddenly lost contact with control. 

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The team says there’s ‘very, very strong’ evidence that it’s the missing plane

Earhart and Noonan have never been heard from since, and the plane has never been recovered. 

However, in July this year, on the 88th anniversary of the mystery, researchers from Purdue University announced they would be embarking on an expedition to Nikumaroro Island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.

The team said they would head out to the island after satellite imagery from 2020 showed a ‘visual anomaly’ which has been dubbed the ‘Taraia Object’ in a lagoon on the island.

The Taraira Object has been spotted as far back as 1938.

”We gathered up many more satellite images, did historical research, found other imagery that relates to it,” executive director of the Archaeological Legacy Institute Pettrigrew told CBS

“We’re going to go look and identify it and if we’re right, we’ll in fact identify the lost Electra. We could be wrong but I think the evidence is very, very strong that this is, in fact what it is.”

The expedition is set to kick-off at the end of this month, with a team of researchers spending ‘several days’ on the small island. 

Once there the team will initially take images and footage of the site, before using magnetometers and sonar for remote sensing. 

They will then use a hydraulic dredge to excavate the object for identification.

Finding Amelia Earhart’s long-lost plane would be ‘the discovery of a lifetime’

Missing for almost nine decades, finding Amelia Earhart’s long-lost plane would solve one of the most enduring mysteries of the 20th century. 

“Finding Amelia Earhart’s Electra aircraft would be the discovery of a lifetime,” Pettigrew said in a statement. 

“Other evidence already collected by The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery establishes an extremely persuasive, multifaceted case that the final destination for Earhart and her navigator, Fred Noonan, was on Nikumaroro.

“Confirming the plane wreckage there would be the smoking-gun proof.”

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Claire Reid is a journalist who hails from the UK but is now living in New Zealand. She began her career after graduating with a degree in Journalism from Liverpool John Moore’s University and has more than a decade of experience, writing for both local newspapers and national news sites. Claire covers a wide variety of topics, with a special focus on cars, technology, planes, cryptocurrency, and luxury.