Ex-US Air Force Officer's $11M Quest Unearths Clues To Amelia Earhart's Lost Plane

Amelia Earhart, the iconic pilot who mysteriously disappeared in 1937, may have her long-lost plane finally discovered. A former U.S. Air Force officer, Tony Romeo, has spent $11 million on a high-tech unmanned submersible and may have found the plane.

What Happened: Romeo, a former U.S. Air Force intelligence officer, has been on a quest to solve the mystery of Earhart’s disappearance. He believes that an image captured using sonar on a high-tech unmanned submersible may have finally answered the question of what caused the disappearance of the iconic pilot, reported Business Insider.

Romeo, a former real estate investor, sold commercial properties to raise the $11 million needed to fund the search. His expedition, which used a $9 million high-tech unmanned submersible “Hugin” drone, covered 5,200 square miles of the ocean floor. The search began in September in Tarawa, Kiribati, and returned in December with a sonar image that Romeo believes shows the lost plane in the ocean’s depths.

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“The next step is confirmation — we’ve gotta go back out with different sorts of sensors and really photograph it well and take a look at how the artifact is sitting on the seabed,” Romeo said, adding, “Once that step is done, lots of people will be involved. The Smithsonian, the family, there’ll be some investors involved because it’ll be an expensive operation, but then we’re thinking: ‘How do we lift the plane? How do we salvage it?'”

Why It Matters: Experts have shown interest in the finding, with some saying they need clearer views and more details, such as the plane’s serial number. Romeo plans to return to the area to try to capture better images using autonomous or robotic submersibles equipped with cameras and sonar to get closer to the object, which rests more than 16,500 feet beneath the surface.

The disappearance of Amelia Earhart has been a subject of fascination and speculation for decades. Her last known location, in deep waters, has made the search for her lost plane extremely challenging. Romeo’s potential discovery could finally provide answers to one of the most enduring mysteries of the 20th century.

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Photo by Jason Wong for Unspalsh