Robert Ballard, the explorer who discovered the Titanic in 1985 is leading a new search for Earhart’s Lockheed Electra 10E aircraft.
The hunt for Amelia Earhart‘s plane is reaching new heights.
- Robert Ballard, the explorer who discovered the Titanic in 1985 — is leading a new search for Earhart’s Lockheed Electra 10E aircraft.
- The search, sponsored by National Geographic, kicked off on August 7.
- Explorers have been looking for any signs of Earhart since she and her navigator Fred Noonan went missing in July of 1937
- “There are various theories about where Amelia’s plane landed, and some of them are a little wild,” Ballard said on Monday.
- One of the leading theories about Earhart’s disappearance is that when trying to land on the tiny Howland Island in the Pacific Ocean, she and Noonan instead landed on the nearby island of Nikumaroro.
- The theory, which TIGHAR has been investigating for decades, is largely based off of Earhart’s last recognizable radio transmissions, which indicated “that the plane was flying on a northwest to the southeast navigational line that bisected Howland Island,” according to NatGeo.
- Although TIGHAR researchers have visited Nikumaroro 13 times in pursuit of the Electra, Ballard’s technological tools are a level-up.
