A former U.S. Air Force pilot and intelligence officer believes his company has found Amelia Earhart's airplane 86 years after its mysterious disappearance.
Tony Romeo, the CEO of Deep Sea Vision, told the TODAY Show that images captured by his company roughly 5,000 meters under the surface of the Pacific Ocean showed an object shaped like a plane on the ocean floor where experts believe Earhart went down during her attempt to become the first woman to fly around the world in a Lockheed 10-E Electra. Earhart and her navigator, Fred Noonan, disappeared after taking off in New Guinea while traveling to Howland Island, which is located in the Pacific and were never found, leading to numerous conspiracy theories regarding their disappearance.
“You’d be hard-pressed to convince me that’s anything but an aircraft, for one, and two, that it’s not Amelia’s aircraft,” Romeo said.
Deep Sea Vision, a South Carolina-based marine robotics company, said in a statement obtained by the Los Angeles Times that its findings were made along Earthart's projected flight path in an area described as being "untouched by known wrecks." The company also shared photos of its findings in a recent Instagram post.
"On July 2, 1937, Amelia Earhart and navigator Fred Noonan took off from Papua New Guinea, nearing the end of their record-setting journey around the world never to be seen again. Until today. Deep Sea Vision found what appears to be Earhart’s Lockheed 10-E Electra," the company wrote.
Romeo has spent $11 million in relation to his search for Earhart's plane, which includes travel, gear and underwater drone expenses and intends to return to the area to gather more images to support his theory.