Researchers think they are closing in on finding Amelia Earhart's plane
Researchers think a sunken 'anomaly' off a Kiribati island could be the plane of the famous female aviator who disappeared in the Pacific in 1937
After five days at sea, the researchers from the International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery (Tighar) are impatient to see land once again. And they are even more impatient to deploy the most advanced technology they have ever been able to lay their hands on in the search for Amelia Earhart.
Tighar has been to the remote Pacific atoll of Nikumaroro 11 times previously, each time turning up tantalising hints as to the fate of arguably the world's most famous female aviator.
This time, however, hopes are high that they are going to locate the "smoking gun" that answers a riddle that dates back to 1937. A sunken "anomaly" off the western end of the island, part of the Republic of Kiribati, may turn out to be the wreckage of Earhart's aircraft.
The anomaly showed up on sonar images recorded by submersible vehicles during Tighar's last expedition to the island, in 2012. But it was only after the team returned to the US that they were able to analyse the vast amounts of material that they had gathered and noticed the primary target of the upcoming expedition.
The researchers will use a remote-controlled submarine to dive to a ledge 187 metres below the surface off the island where sonar images indicate the presence of a cylindrical object that is the right length for the Lockheed Electra in which Earhart and her navigator, Fred Noonan, were attempting to fly around the world when they disappeared in 1937.
As well as a solid target, the images appear to show a debris field behind the anomaly that would be consistent with components falling out of the aircraft as it sank, as well as a "scar" in the sediment.
"If our theory about what happened is correct, this is exactly what we would expect to see in just the place we would expect to see it," said Ric Gillespie, executive director of Tighar.
"This expedition is nothing more, and nothing less, than an attempt to build on the preponderance of evidence that has already established Nikumaroro as the most likely answer to the Earhart riddle," he added.
The world's most famous female aviator disappeared in 1937 after taking off from New Guinea for one of the last legs of her round-the-world trip. Headed for the Pacific island of Howland, Earhart and Noonan made radio contact with nearby ships but were not able to find the island.
After disappearing into the vastness of the Pacific, a massive search operation swung into operation but found no clues as to the aircraft's fate.
Numerous theories have been put forward to explain Earhart's disappearance - including that she was on a secret espionage mission for the US government over Japanese-held territory in the Pacific, but was captured by the Japanese and imprisoned on Saipan - but Tighar has come up with some convincing evidence.
Tighar researchers first set foot on the uninhabited island, a former British colony, in 2000 to test the hypothesis that Earhart put down on the coral flats at the western end of the island.
Subsequent visits have turned up clues that support the theory - shards of plexiglass from a windscreen and aluminium from an aircraft, stories of the discovery of a human body that was subsequently lost in the confusion of the second world war and indications that a castaway survived on the island for some time before succumbing to the elements - but Gillespie hopes that the sonar image might finally be the "smoking gun" they have been searching for.
According to the theory, Earhart was able to land the Lockheed safely on the reef, but it was washed off the edge before aircraft searching for her were able to spot it.
And while much of the aircraft is likely to have been lost in the intervening years, Tighar thinks some key components - such as the heavy Pratt & Whitney engines or the fuselage - could still be where they sank 78 years ago.
