Oregon archeologist to embark on expedition to find Amelia Earharts long-lost plane

An Oregon-based archeologist is the latest scientist attempting to find Amelia Earhart’s long-lost plane and solve the baffling 88-year mystery surrounding her and flight navigator Fred Noonan’s disappearances.Dr.Richard Pettigrew, executive director of the Archaeological Legacy Institute in Eugene, has assembled a team that will launch an expedition this summer to the remote island of Nikumaroro in the western Pacific Ocean to find Earhart’s Lockheed 10-E Electra. After years of acquiring and analyzing satellite, video and drone imagery, Pettigrew believes a metallic and reflective visual anomaly, called the Taraia Object, on the north shore of the Nikumaroro lagoon alongside the Taraia Peninsula is the main body and tail of the missing aircraft.

“I’m well aware of the frustrating history of the decades-long search for Earhart and Noonan,” said Pettigrew, who participated in previous expeditions to Nikumaroro, where some believe Earhart crash landed and died.“As a professional archaeologist, I’m quite cautious when I consider evidence for or against any important hypothesis such as this.”The pioneering female aviator, a household name at the time, disappeared with Noonan, her flight navigator, on what was to be a record-setting trip around the world in 1937.The pair set off from Lae, Papua New Guinea, with plans to refuel on Howland Island before continuing their journey to Honolulu and their final destination of Oakland, Calif, but faced a strong headwind in Lae when Earhart’s radio transmissions eventually went silent. The US Navy and Coast Guard conducted a 16-day search for the missing duo without success, and Earhart was officially declared dead on Jan.5, 1939. Despite many attempts and millions of dollars spent over nine decades, neither Earhart’s remains nor the wreckage of her plane have ever been located – with the latest million-dollar expedition by Tony Romeo and his Deep Sea Vision team debunked in November.Romero, a South C...