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Researchers who travelled to a remote Pacific island to examine what they thought might be wreckage from Amelia Earhart’s plane say the object was likely a collection of trees washed ashore. BBC World reported the findings.
The team visited a lagoon on the Taraia Peninsula on Nikumaroro, Kiribati, to investigate a shiny object first identified in satellite imagery in 2020. Purdue University, which played a leading role in the study, said the so-called Taraia Object was probably “a collection of large trees deposited along the peninsula’s sandspit”.
By the time the researchers reached the site, much of the debris had fragmented and washed away, leaving a single Y-shaped segment, the university said.
Images of the object, which Purdue University said could be seen in photographs dating back to 1938, had led researchers to consider whether it was part of a small aircraft in shallow water.
“This mystery has been ongoing for 90 years and the mystery continues,” project director Rick Pettigrew said near the site. “The island has been holding on to its secrets and it continues to do so. I think eventually someone will find conclusive evidence here.”
Earhart’s plane disappeared in 1937 during the third-to-last leg of her attempt to fly around the world. She had already flown from California across South America, Africa and Asia in her twin-engine “Lockheed Electra” before arriving in Lae, Papua New Guinea.
Earhart and navigator Fred Noonan planned to travel towards Hawaii and then return to California. Their plane vanished as they tried to reach Howland Island, an uninhabited coral island about 400 miles (644km) from Nikumaroro, to refuel.
One theory is that Earhart mistakenly navigated to Nikumaroro, where she abandoned the plane and died as a castaway.
The research team spent five days travelling by sea to reach Nikumaroro. Rough seas and strong winds kept them aboard their ship for several days and delayed the search on the island. They spent four days onshore examining the site.
