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Research Group Says Amelia Earhart Crash Evidence Found in Underwater Footage

After 75 years, one group is convinced it’s hot on the trail of missing aviator Amelia Earhart.

The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery originally called off their $2.2 million hunt for Earhart’s aircraft off Nikumaroro Island in July, admitting they hadn’t found any real evidence supporting their theory that the female pilot and her navigator had made a crash landing there.

But after reviewing underwater camera footage, the researchers now believe they may have found a debris field with multiple objects “in a location where we had previously reasoned where airplane wreckage should be” including “the fender, possibly the wheel and possibly some portions of the strut.”

Amelia Earhart waves from the cockpit of her plane circa 1929; a research group thinks it may have discovered underwater footage showing wreckage from Earhart’s plane off Nikumaroro Island.

Photo by Getty Images

The group chose the island because of a photo taken soon after Earhart disappeared while circumnavigating the globe, which seemed to show landing gear of her Lockheed Elektra sticking out of the water near the beach there. Their team plans to return to the site and recover the objects for further study … as long as they’re not just a bunch of oddly-shaped rocks.

Video by Jim Festante.