The company behind a search for pilot Amelia Earhart’s possible crash site in the Pacific said a sonar image believed to resemble her plane turned out to be the sea floor’s normal shapes.
Marine robotics firm Deep Sea Vision said earlier this month on its social media accounts that imagery from an underwater drone deployed during the expedition turned out to show a “natural rock formation.”
“After 11 months the waiting has finally ended and unfortunately our target was not Amelia’s Electra 10E,” it said in the Nov. 6 post, referring to her twin engine Lockheed 10-E Electra.
The company, based in Charleston, South Carolina, did not immediately respond to a request for more information about its conclusion.
The sonar image of what appeared to be a cross-shaped object not unlike an aircraft sparked excitement when the company announced in January that Earhart’s plane was “believed to be found.”
The image was taken about 100 miles from Howland Island, halfway between Australia and Hawaii, and a part of Earhart’s 1937 itinerary as she attempted to become the first woman in the pilot’s seat to circumnavigate the globe.
Earhart and her navigator, Fred Noonan, were expected to refuel on Howland in July 1937, but never arrived. Both were declared dead two years later, despite failure to locate their remains or a crash site.
Deep Sea Vision and its CEO, Tony Romeo, did some navigational math and came up with a possible area for a crash site, sending marine archeologists and its HUGIN 6000 submersible vehicle to scan the depths of the ocean 1,600 meters at a time, the company said in a statement early this year.
The company said in January that members of the expedition debated whether to release the sonar image, with Deep Sea Vision asserting that the discovery wasn’t one for the record books without another expedition with more exacting data or an outside organization confirming what Deep Sea Vision believed it had found.
It’s November conclusion that it found a natural undersea formation came with more humility — and humor. Deep Sea Vision’s Instagram page also featured a post this month of a branded T-shirt with the sonar image that states: “We find rocks.”
Romeo told CNN that the company hopes to return to the area to continue the search for Earhart’s last location.
“In some ways, I’m even more excited now about it now,” he told the network.
