In search for Amelia Earhart's plane, tantalising clue turns out to be tree debris
LOS ANGELES: US-based explorers who travelled to a tiny South Pacific island seeking to conclusively solve the 1937 disappearance of famed aviator Amelia Earhart have determined that an object they suspected was wreckage from her plane was a cluster of washed-up trees.
Los Angeles-based explorers, backed by private donors and Purdue University, embarked on a $900,000 expedition to the South Pacific island of Kiribati in search of Amelia Earhart's missing plane. The group sought to determine if a multi-pronged object spotted in 2020 satellite imagery was debris from the aviator's Lockheed Electra 10-E aeroplane.
After a week on Nikumaroro, part of the Phoenix Islands, the team concluded the object was likely tree debris, not the long-lost aircraft. Purdue general counsel Steve Schultz stated, "We weren't able to find that smoking gun." Nonetheless, the expedition's leader, Richard Pettigrew, said evidence supporting the castaway hypothesis remains strong.
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