In less than a month, scientists will embark on an expedition that could finally solve the mystery of Amelia Earhart’s missing plane.
Researchers from Purdue University will undertake a three–week search of the remote Nikumaroro Island, a five–mile–long coral atoll in the Pacific Ocean.
However, Justin Myers, a pilot with almost 25 years of experience, told Daily Mail he thinks the mission is ‘barking up the wrong tree’.
That’s because Mr Myers believes he knows where Earhart’s crashed plane really is.
The Purdue University expedition is aiming to investigate a mysterious metal cylinder known as the Taraia object, which was spotted in satellite imagery in 2002.
Researchers believe that this cylindrical object is the fuselage of the Lockheed Electra 10E that Earhart and her navigator, Fred Noonan, were flying when they vanished on July 2, 1937.
But according to Mr Myers, this object is nothing more than a piece of debris that has been drifting around the reef for years.
He says: ‘If I were in their position, I’d rule it out before you go wasting any more money.’
In less than a month, researchers from Purdue University will embark on a three–week expedition to Nikumaroro Island to investigate the possible site of Emilia Earhart’s crashed Lockheed Electra E10
Justin Myers, a British pilot with almost 25 years of experience, says that the researchers are ‘barking up the wrong tree’ and risk wasting funding that could be put to better use
Earhart was attempting to become the first woman to complete a full circumnavigational flight of the globe when she and Noonan vanished without a trace.
After departing from Lae Airfield in Papua New Guinea, Earhart was supposed to land at Howland Island after a journey of 2,556 miles.
While a popular theory suggests that the pair simply crashed into the sea and were lost, some think that they could have been forced 400 miles north to Nikumaroro Island.
If Earhart and Noonan were pushed north by bad weather, the island’s long, flat beaches could have presented a tempting target for an emergency landing.
Departing on November 4, a 15–person crew will sail approximately 1,200 nautical miles from the Marshall Islands to Nikumaroro, and then spend several days investigating.
This is based on the strong belief that the Taraia object really is Earhart’s Lockheed Electra 10E.
However, Mr Myers says he has evidence to show the researchers are looking in the wrong place.
Based on satellite images taken from Google Maps, the pilot instead points to an apparent collection of debris on the Island’s East coast.
Researchers believe that the so–called ‘Taraia object’ could be the remains of the plane Earhart was flying when she disappeared in 1937
However, Mr Myers believes that he has found parts of Earhart’s crashed plane in satellite images on a different side of the island (pictured)
Using digital measuring tools, he found that these ‘dark coloured objects’ matched the exact dimensions of parts found in the Electra 10E.
Rather than remaining in one solid piece, as the Taraia object would suggest, he Myers believes Earhart’s plane has been broken down by over 80 years in the water.
He says: ‘Of course, I can’t be 100 per cent sure that I’ve found Emilia Earhart’s aeroplane, but I’m confident that it is an aeroplane.’
Mr Myers says that he attempted to share these findings with Purdue University several years ago but never had any response in return.
While he says he is extremely supportive of the upcoming mission and hopes they do find new evidence, he is also concerned that investigating the Taraia object might not be the best use of resources.
‘I’m not a scientist or a professor, I’m just a pilot who has an interest in this,’ says Mr Myers.
‘But the bottom line is that a lot of money is being put into these expeditions that could be dispersed in other ways.
‘I would want to look at what I found before you go wasting more money, because there are too many parts that would fit.’
Amelia Earhart and her navigator, Fred Noonan, were not scheduled to fly over Nikumaroro Island, but poor weather and low fuel may have forced them to attempt an emergency landing on the island
Mr Myers says that the shapes he spotted in the water by Nikumaroro Island match the dimensions of Earhart’s aircraft exactly
Of course, Mr Myers’ claim to have found Earhart’s plane elsewhere on Nikumaroro Island raises one big question.
He asks: ‘If this is likely a plane and it matches all the measurements, then what is the Taraia object?’
According to the pilot, the answer can be found in the wreckage of a British cargo steamship that ran aground almost a decade before Earhart set off on her fateful journey.
On the night of November 16, 1929, the SS Norwich City, a 377–foot (121 m) cargo vessel, was sailing from Melbourne to Vancouver when a storm pushed it against a coral reef.
The boat was torn apart in the wreck, which killed 11 crewmen, and the remains of the SS Norwich City remained on the reef for decades.
However, while examining early pictures of the SS Norwich City, Mr Myers noticed an intriguing detail.
‘There’s a great big white cylinder on the deck of the SS Norwich City, which was either used for offloading certain cargoes or for ventilating the hold,’ he said.
However, pictures taken of the wreck decades later don’t show this large cylinder at all.
It is commonly believed that Earhart crashed her Lockheed Electra 10E off the coast of Nikumaroro Island (pictured) in the Pacific Ocean after running out of fuel. However, no trace of the plane has ever been found despite decades of searching
He believes that, as the SS Norwich broke up, the metal tube rolled off into the reef where it has been moved around by the weather ever since.
And, after washing up on the island’s lagoon, this cylinder eventually became known as the Taraia object and has been mistaken for Earheart’s Electra 10E.
He says: ‘It’s man–made, and they are absolutely right – you could think it was the fuselage of an aeroplane.
‘If I hadn’t found that old load of debris, I would have been right there with them. But because of what I’ve found, the Taraia object can only have come off the SS Norwich City.’
While Mr Myers’ claims might sound speculative, his scepticism about the Taraia object is not entirely unwarranted.
That is because Purdue University are far from the first to set out to Nikumaroro in search of the missing plane.
In 2019, the explorer Robert Ballard, who found the wreck of the Titanic, led a multi–million–pound expedition to Nikumaroro Island to search for Earhart and Noonan’s remains.
Mr Ballard scanned the island with sonar and with remotely operated underwater vehicles out to a distance of four nautical miles.
Mr Myers believes that the Taraia object is actually a cylinder that had been resting on the deck of the SS Norwich City, a steamer which crashed near Nikumaroro Island in 1929
In early pictures of the wreck, a large metal cylinder is visible on the deck (left), which cannot be seen in aerial pictures taken after the ship started to subside years later (right). Mr Myers believes this cylinder is the Taraia object
However, despite searching for two weeks, Mr Ballard and his crew found nothing even remotely related to Emilia Earhart.
Likewise, the International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery (TIGHAR) has launched 13 separate missions to the island without finding any success.
Speaking to Live Science in 2019, Richard Gillespie, the founder of TIGHAR, argued that the Electra E10 was a delicate aeroplane that has now likely been reduced to ‘pieces of aluminium’.
Mr Gillespie added: ‘It’s been 82 years and those small pieces have been scattered and grown over [or] possibly buried in underwater landslides.’
That means the Taraia object’s surprisingly plane–shaped appearance might suggest that it is, in fact, not the remains of an aircraft after all.
Ultimately, even though Mr Myers isn’t convinced by Purdue University’s choice of target, he remains hopeful that this expedition will help to finally yield some answers.
‘I hope that they do find something either way because, let’s be truthful, I’m never going to get to go there,’ he says.
‘If it is Emilia Earhart’s plane, then they were right. If it isn’t, then they were barking up the wrong tree. Whatever they find, it will finally put a lid on that theory one way or the other.’
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