Mystery of Amelia Earhart Solved? Fragment From Missing Plane Identified

Newsweek - US

Paula Mejia

1 hr ago

Researchers at The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery (TIGHAR) revealed that a piece from Amelia Earhart’s vanished aircraft has been identified in Nikumaroro, an atoll in the southwestern Pacific republic of Kiribati. This is the first time that an artifact from the wreckage has been directly linked to Earhart’s last expedition, in which she was attempting to circumnavigate the Earth at the equator, and sheds new light on the 77-year-old aviation mystery.

The 19-inch-wide by 23-inch-long piece, found by researchers in 1991, is strongly believed to be a metal fragment installed on the window of Earhart’s Lockheed Electra aircraft during her eight-day stay in Miami, which was her fourth stop on the journey. A photograph on TIGHAR’s site from The Miami Herald, dated July 1, 1937, shows the aircraft intact with the metal patch.

Once the patch was identified in the photograph, researchers compared the patch with that of the Lockheed Electra aircraft at Wichita Air Services in Newton, Kansas, according to Discovery News. It matched the plans and the Electra’s structure. According to TIGHAR, the patch was a field modification whose “complex fingerprint of dimensions, proportions, materials and rivet patterns was as unique to Earhart’s Electra as a fingerprint is to an individual.” The sheet’s purpose was for the pilot to be able to take in “celestial observations” from thousands of feet in the sky.

Read more: http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/myst...fied/ar-BBbVCrA