“Flying might not be all plain sailing, but the fun of it is worth the price.” – Amelia Earhart

For nearly 90 years, the enduring mystery of one aviation’s most famous pilots has never been far from our minds.

From documentaries to conspiracy theories to years-long searches, the drive to find Amelia Earhart’s plane is something that is still talked about to this day.

And maybe, after all these years, her final resting place might have been found.

A crew from Deep Sea Vision believes it has located the long-lost wreckage of Earhart’s Lockheed 10-E Electra at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean. And they have the sonar pictures that just might prove it.

Deep Sea Vision said they found the potential plane after scanning “more than 5,200 square miles of ocean floor.”

The last time anyone saw Earhart and Fred Noonan, her navigator, was when the pair flew off July 2, 1937, from Papua New Guinea. Their next stop was Howland Island for refueling. They never made it to the island.

So the expedition, led by former U.S. Air Force intelligence officer Tony Romeo, focused their search on a 5,200 square mile area near where officials have always suspected Earhart crashed.

On the far right of both images, you an see what looks like the clear outline of an airplane on the sea floor. Photo by Deep Sea Vision

Romeo is determined to find Earhart’s plane. He recently sold real estate he had owned, and spent $11 million to fund the trip, as well as purchase high-tech equipment to help search.

“This has been a story that’s always intrigued me, and all the things in my life kind of collided at the right moment,” Romeo said. “I was getting out of real estate and looking for a new project, so even though I really started about 18 months ago, this was something I’ve been thinking and researching for a long time.”

After 90 days, Romeo’s team was reviewing sonar images and saw something unusual from 60 days earlier. The object looked to be about the same shape and size as an aircraft. It was also located nearly 100 miles from Howland Island, which experts think is where Earhart’s plane went down. The object is around 16,400 feet below the water’s surface.

Romeo said that while he knows there is work that has to be done to confirm if the wreckage does belong to Earhart, he is confident the debris is connected to the crash.

“There’s no other known crashes in the area, and certainly not of that era or that kind of design with the tale that you see in the image,” Romeo said.

This is maybe the most exciting thing I’ll ever do in my life. I feel like a 10-year-old going on a treasure hunt.” 

However, deep sea experts want more evidence.

Dorothy Cochrane, an aeronautics curator at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum said that really is the next step. “It really requires further research,” she said.

Amelia Earhart. Photo by Getty Images

“Finding something that’s really worth investigating further is step one,” Cochrane said. “Verifying it’s the actual craft is step two. And step three becomes: Is it possible to recover this or not, or should it just be left where it is?”

At the time of her disappearance, Earhart was a global celebrity. So when she and Noonan began their trip to circumnavigate the globe, the fanfare was immense. Right before her disappearance, the pair stopped to rest at Lae, Papua New Guinea. A few days later, they left and flew toward Howland Island.

The U.S. Coast Guard had a vessel, the Itasca, stationed near the island. Operators aboard the Itasca heard Earhart’s radio messages as she got closer to the island. But eventually, they lost contact. Earhart and Noonan were never seen again. After nearly 2 years of search, Earhart was declared dead on Jan. 5, 1939.

Theories have kept her story alive. But Romeo, along with Cochrane, share the belief that the simplest explanation is the most plausible: that Earhart and Noonan ran out of fuel near Howland Island.

“She’s got to be around there somewhere,” Cochrane said.

Romeo said he and his crew are already working on the next trip to the plane, as well as how to get a close up look.

Watch below for a look at what Romeo found!

Sources: People | Smithsonian Mag