No conclusive evidence of Amelia Earharts missing plane found in South Pacific expedition

An expedition to find evidence of Amelia Earhart’s missing plane near a remote island in the South Pacific has come up empty, researchers said Sunday.Researchers from the Archaeological Legacy Institute and Purdue University embarked this month on the Taraia Object expedition in Nikumaroro, an uninhabited coral atoll in the Phoenix Islands belonging to the Republic of Kiribati.The team sought to identify an anomaly first seen in satellite images in 2020.Experts have long suspected Nikumaroro as the landing site of Earhart and her navigator, Fred Noonan, who disappeared in July 1937.However, the expedition “found no conclusive evidence to confirm a hypothesis that wreckage” from Earhart’s plane was “in a lagoon on a remote atoll in the South Pacific,” the university said in a news release.Amelia Earhart and her navigator, Fred Noonan, disappeared in their Lockheed Electra 10-E while on a journey around the world.Purdue University“We think it’s most likely that the object was a collection of debris that accumulated here,” Rick Pettigrew, ALI’s executive director, said in a video message.The expedition determined that the anomaly was most “likely a collection of large trees deposited along the peninsula’s sandpit.” When the team arrived, much of the “debris had fragmented and washed away.” What was left was a Y-shaped segment that was just a small fraction of the anomaly’s original size observed via satellite.

For SubscribersFOR SUBSCRIBERSOne poll, multiple outcomes: Why election surveys come with an extra layer of uncertaintyFOR SUBSCRIBERSThis Super Bowl contender has an elite offense and defense — and one potentially fatal flawFOR SUBSCRIBERSAnthropic wants outside input on Claude’s values.But who gets the final say?FOR SUBSCRIBERS‘Astounded’: DOJ vets shocked by timing of Ilhan Omar searchFOR SUBSCRIBERSPope Leo’s cancer surgery early in his papacy sends shock waves through the Catholic ChurchFOR SUBSCRIBERSTrump says Su...