Why Pilot Thinks He Solved Amelia Earhart Plane Crash Mystery

Someone may have finally landed the answer to the mystery of Amelia Earhart‘s fatal crash. 

Former U.S. Air Force intelligence officer and CEO of Deep Sea Vision Tony Romeo detected what he believes to be the trailblazing pilot’s plane while on an $11 million expedition of the Pacific Ocean. 

Romeo, who sold commercial real estate to fund his voyage, collected sonar images during his trip by using an underwater drone. In some of the photos, the pilot appeared to capture a blurry object shaped like Earhart’s twin engine Lockheed 10-E Electra—the plane she flew on her unsuccessful bid to become the first woman to circumnavigate the world in 1937.

“You’d be hard pressed to convince me that’s anything but an aircraft, for one,” he told the TODAY show in an interview that aired Jan. 29, “and two, that it’s not Amelia’s aircraft.”

Earhart, alongside her navigator Fred Noonan, set off on her risky expedition on July 2, 1937. A few days later, the pair were expected to refuel on Howland Island—halfway between Australia and Hawaii—but never arrived. Earhart and Noonan were declared dead in January 1939, and their plane was never recovered.