19 Apr 2019

Is Amelia Earhart's plane in the waters of Bougainville?

From , 3:03 pm on 19 April 2019

Since American Aviatrix, Amelia Earhart, went missing more than 80 years ago somewhere in the central Pacific, searches have been going on to try and find out what happened.

In 1937 Ms Earhart was nearing the end of what would have been a record setting, round the world trip, and had flown from Lae in Papua New Guinea, heading for the tiny dot of Howland Atoll in Micronesia..

But her twin engine, twin-tail, Lockheed Electra, never made it.

Bill Snavely of Project Blue Angel has been searching to solve the Earhart mystery for many years and thinks Amelia may have decided to double back, after realising she was close to running out of fuel.

He calculated this would put Ms Earhart over Buka in Bougainville - a theory that ties in with possible sightings and maybe a wreck.

To help out, he brought in New Zealand company, Boxfish Research, which has a remote operation vehicle, an ROV.

Boxfish is considered a world leader in underwater vision technology and Don Wiseman asked its chief executive, Mike Orange, what they found.