A US-based team of marine archaeologists has set sail for a remote Pacific atoll, hoping to finally solve one of the 20th century's greatest aviation mysteries: the 1937 disappearance of Amelia Earhart. Backed by Purdue University, the expedition aims to determine whether a submerged object spotted in satellite imagery six years ago is the wreckage of Earhart's Lockheed Electra 10-E aircraft.
If confirmed, the discovery would prove the long-debated theory that Earhart and her navigator, Fred Noonan, crash-landed on or near Nikumaroro, an uninhabited island in the Phoenix Islands, part of Kiribati. The team departed Los Angeles earlier this month and is expected to arrive at the atoll on Tuesday, October 13, local time.
Why Nikumaroro? The case for the castaway theory
For decades, researchers have debated what happened after Earhart's final radio transmission on July 2, 1937, when she reported