Pacific expedition to look for Amelia Earhart's missing plane

In a new Pacific expedition, researchers from The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery (TIGHAR) will look for Amelia Earhart's missing plane.

In TIGHAR's eleventh expedition to Nikumaroro, also known as Gardner Island, researchers would conduct 14 days of research both on land and at sea, and group's executive director, Ric Gillespie, said there focus will be on the west end of the atoll, reported Fox News.

Using a camera-equipped underwater Remote Operated Vehicle (ROV) to investigate a sonar anomaly at a depth of 600 feet that could be the fuselage of Earhart's Lockheed Electra, the divers will search shallower waters for aircraft debris, while the onshore search team looks for signs of an "initial survival campsite."

Last year a photo of Earhart's plane, captured by the Miami Herald in 1937, was said to be crucial evidence in her disappearance. The picture, which was clicked right before Earhart embarked on the ill-fated journey, shows a patch of aluminum bolted onto Earhart's plane that has been described as a key clue in solving the Earhart mystery.

Gillespie strongly believes that they had found the same aluminum plate on Nikumaroro in 1991.

Earhart, who was the first female aviator to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean, had mysteriously disappeared somewhere over the Pacific Ocean in 1937 during her second flying attempt to circumnavigate the globe.

Her disappearance till date remains a debated unsolved mystery.