Amelia Earhart Plane: Group Denies 2010 Discovery

Amelia Earhart was an aviation pioneer who became the first female pilot to make a solo-flight across the Atlantic Ocean, but in 1937 she disappeared over the central Pacific Ocean during a flight around the globe. Now a Delaware aircraft preservation group is denying claims from a Wyoming man that says the missing plane was found underwater in 2010.

Timothy Mellon, who is the son of the late philanthropist Paul Mellon, filed a federal lawsuit last week in Wyoming against the Delaware group. The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery (TIGHAR) and their executive director Richard E. Gillespie are being sued by Mellon for soliciting $1 million from him last year without informing him that the missing plane had been found two years earlier.

The lawsuit claims that a search in 2010 by the Delaware group at the Kiribati atoll of Nikumaroro, which is south of Hawaii, caught images underwater of “wreckage of the Lockheed Electra flown by Amelia Earhart when she disappeared in 1937.”

Mellon’s lawyer, Tim Stubson, got into further detail about the photos on Monday.

“As a layman, it is hard to see, unless you know what you’re looking at it,” Stubson said, via The Associated Press. “Much of it relates to the landing gear and parts that are unique to the landing gear.”

Lawyer Bill Carter, who represents TIGHAR, also commented on the claims and he said that the group “did not conclusively make any discoveries” during the 2010 search.

“TIGHAR does not possess any definitive evidence as to the whereabouts of Earhart’s Lockheed Electra, and did not conclusively make any discoveries in 2010 which it’s withheld,” Carter said about the search mission via The Associated Press. “All of its information and its research is compiled and available for public viewing on its website.”

There’s no way of telling how this will all turn out and if there was in fact a true discovery. Do you believe the missing plane of Amelia Earhart was found by TIGHAR in 2010?