Modern Mysteries

Amelia Earhart plane fragment identified

By T.K. Randall
October 30, 2014

Image: Amelia Earhart
Credit: Library of Congress, Harris & Ewing Collection, LC-DIG-hec-40747 The disappearance of Amelia Earhart while flying over the Pacific in 1937 has remained one of the modern world's most enduring mysteries, but now efforts to piece together what actually happened to her twin-engined Lockheed Electra on that fateful day have yielded what is believed to be the first true idenficiation of a piece of debris from the wreckage.

The metal fragment was actually found back in 1991 along a coral reef in the south-western Pacific republic of Kiribati and matches an identical piece seen in a photograph of Earhart's plane. The comparison was originally suggested back in July but researchers have since been able to conclusively match the metal patch with one from an actual Lockheed Electra that had been restored to an airworthy condition in Kansas."This is the first time an artefact found on Nikumaroro has been shown to have a direct link to Amelia Earhart," said Ric Gillespie of The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery.

"The Miami Patch was an expedient field repair. Its complex fingerprint of dimensions, proportions, materials and rivet patterns was as unique to Earhart's Electra as a fingerprint is to an individual."

Source: News.com.au

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