Marine Robotics Company Believes It Has Solved Amelia Earhart Mystery

The combined efforts of marine archaeologists and robotics experts may have solved one of history’s greatest mysteries: what happened to Amelia Earhart. On July 2, 1937, Earhart and her navigator, Fred Noonan, were flying in a Lockheed Model 10 Electra aircraft when they lost contact with the U.S. Coast Guard. Despite extensive search efforts, no wreckage or definitive evidence of their whereabouts was ever found.

Deep Sea Vision (DSV), a South Carolina–based marine robotics company, believes it may have an answer. CEO Tony Romeo, alongside his brother Lloyd Romeo, believed in the “Date Line” theory proposed by former NASA employee and amateur pilot Liz Smith. This theory states that Earhart’s failed flight was due to her and Noonan forgetting to turn the calendar back a day as they crossed the International Date Line, which is an important calculation in celestial navigation. The mistake would have caused westward navigational errors of around 60 nm.

Following Smith’s projections for where Earhart’s airplane could have been located, DSV used its HUGIN 6000 submersible vehicle to scan the ocean floor with sonar technology. After some searching, it discovered contours and shapes that resembled Earhart’s aircraft.

"We always felt that she [Earhart] would have made every attempt to land the aircraft gently on the water, and the aircraft signature that we see in the sonar image suggests that may be the case," said Romeo. "We're thrilled to have made this discovery at the tail end of our expedition, and we plan to bring closure to a great American story."

For now, DSV is keeping the exact location of its discovery a secret. The new findings have also caught the eye of the Smithsonian, one of several organizations tasked with verifying the company’s claim.

"We are intrigued with DSV's initial imagery and believe it merits another expedition in the continuing search for Amelia Earhart's aircraft near Howland Island,” said Dorothy Cochrane, curator of the aeronautics department at the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum.