When you hear the name Amelia Earhart, dozens if not hundreds of questions come to mind.
What happened to her plane? What caused the crash? Could Earhart and the Navigator escape in time? Was she just a spy using her disappearance as a cover?
All of this could be the case if the flat mass discovered at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean late last year was actually the infamous Lockheed 10-E Electra, which disappeared during its record-setting 1937 round-the-world voyage. The question will finally be answered. .
Tony Romeo and his deep-sea vision team, who captured sonar images of the familiar object during a plane-spotting expedition in December, are now planning a second visit to the site.
They hope to finally solve the case that has baffled millions of people for 87 years.
“Based on where she was found, we feel like we can reverse engineer what happened and how she got there,” said Tony Romeo, a pilot and former U.S. Air Force intelligence officer who led the search. He told the Post he sold all of his commercial properties to pay the costs.
What will happen to Earhart’s remains?
Barring damage from a suspected surface impact, or, according to one theory, a coral reef impact, before being swept into the deep ocean, and general wear and tear from the constantly moving ocean, the aircraft may still be underwater. in perfect condition.
Romeo and his team keep the location of the wreckage a secret, but reveal that it lies 15,000 feet deep in the ocean, with cold temperatures and limited natural light working to protect the doomed plane. Ta.
“It’s very stable. There’s no electrical current. There’s basically no oxidation going on like you would see in very shallow water,” said the Charleston, South Carolina, resident.
“If this plane had crashed into 100 feet of water, it would have disintegrated. But amazingly, it’s actually very well preserved at that depth.”
Marine engineering expert M. Reza Alam said the construction of Earhart’s plane itself could protect the original structure.
Like most modern aircraft, her plane is sheathed in aluminum and designed to withstand significant corrosion. But this durable metal has been sitting thousands of feet below the ocean floor for nearly a century, so it’s likely to have deteriorated somewhat.
More importantly, this old plane was likely equipped with airway deposits that allowed seawater to flood into the cockpit when it sank, preventing an implosion like the one seen in last year’s Titan submarine disaster. was completed.
If it functions properly during a disaster, the cabin could be filled with answers.
“The pressure inside and outside the glass is balanced, so it doesn’t necessarily break the glass. When the pressure on one side is much stronger than the other, that’s when we break it,” California said Arum, chair of the U.S. Maritime Administration’s Department of Ocean Engineering at the University of Berkeley.
“Therefore, there is a good chance that the hut is perfectly preserved.”
What can we learn from Earhart’s wreckage?
Maps, charts and notes from Earhart’s ill-fated historic flight could serve as a time capsule if they survive as Romeo hopes.
The Electra was too noisy for Earhart to communicate with navigator Fred Noonan, so the pilots were likely exchanging notes detailing their impending doom shortly before crash.
“Where are we?” “Why are we lost?” and “Where is the island?” These are just some of the messages the two passed during Romeo’s moment of frenzy.
“Believe it or not, all the notes they went back and forth are still on the plane and legible. So once we evacuate the plane, we’ll have to figure out what happened. “We hope to find a lot of really valuable information that will help us,” he said.
The condition of some objects that may be found inside the cockpit may also indicate whether Earhart and Noonan knew their fate. Was there a life jacket, or was it still inflated? Were they frantically switching to another radio frequency for help? Was the hatch open?
“I feel like I can reverse engineer what happened and how she got there based on where I found it.”
tony romeo
These clues are important for revealing whether they escaped before the plane sank. In any case, investigators will not be able to find their bodies in the cabin. Allum said microbes and bacteria would have mixed in with the gushing water and eaten away at Earhart and Noonan’s footprints over the past 80 years.
Even if the plane wasn’t in the great condition experts expected, the extent of the damage could shed light on how and why the plane ended up in the ocean.
Significant damage, such as a broken wing or stabilizer, indicates the ship crashed into the water, but a more intact ship could mean Earhart made an emergency landing on the surface before sinking to the floor. .
The wreck would support, or even refute, the conspiracy that the aviation icon landed on a shallow reef near the island before the plane was swept into deep water.
“There’s going to be a lot of really, really great questions that will be asked and answered,” Romeo said.
Who can get Earhart’s plane?
The open sea is ruled by what Romeo calls the “Keeper of the Discoverer,” but the question of who can claim ownership of Earhart’s plane could become even more complicated.
Because the uninsured Electra was privately owned, Earhart’s family, who are being consulted by the Deep Sea Vision Team, may be able to declare legal ownership of the wreck.
Another team could swoop in and try to claim the supposed plane. Romeo admits it’s unlikely, but the location where the sonar images were taken is a closely guarded secret.
There are very few ocean teams in the world with the technology and resources to reach the depths where the lump was discovered, and who can form a close-knit community that understands the magnitude of the Earhart family’s connection to deep-sea vision. is.
“This is not like leaving a big bag of change,” Romeo said. “It’s valuable, but it’s also very sensitive. My experience working with these communities is that everyone is very respectful of this and wants it resolved.”
The only clue that Romeo’s team is willing to offer at this point is that the plane they believe crashed was found within 100 miles of Howland Island, an unincorporated U.S. territory in the central Pacific Ocean.
