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Part of Amelia Earhart’s plane found: reports

Researchers could be a step closer to solving one of the greatest mysteries of all time after claims a piece of Amelia Earhart’s lost airplane has been found.

The American aviator’s Lockheed Electra disappeared without a trace while flying over the Pacific Ocean in 1937.

She was attempting to become the first woman to fly solo around the globe.

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Now, new research suggests that a slab of aluminium found decades ago on an uninhabited island in the Pacific does come from her aircraft.

The warped piece of metal was uncovered on a 1991 voyage to the island of Nikumaroro, in the south-western Pacific republic of Kiribati, by The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery (TIGHAR).

The group spent millions of dollars searching for Earhart’s plane in a project that has involved hundreds of people.

“We don’t understand how that patch got busted out of (the plane) and ended up on the island where we found it, but we have the patch, we have a piece of Earhart’s aircraft,” TIGHAR executive director Ric Gillespie said.

The group believes the aluminium sheet was installed on the Eletcra during Earhart’s eight-day stay in Miami, according to Discovery News.

Experts doubt claims of find without serial number

The announcement that new analysis had determined the piece was from her lost craft was met with scepticism from some aviation experts.

There has been no independent review of the claim, and the metal does not carry any definitive markings, such as a serial number.

Amelia Earhart was the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean.

Amelia Earhart was the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean.

The piece, which measures about 61cm by 46cm, did not appear to be a standard part of a Lockheed Electra, the plane Earhart was flying when she disappeared.

But TIGHAR researchers recently began to look into the possibility it might have been installed on the plane as a patch after a window was removed, Mr Gillespie said.

On October 7, a TIGHAR team examined a plane at Wichita Air Services in Kansas that was similar to Ms Earhart’s aircraft.

Because the plane was being restored, it was possible to look at its interior and see where the sheet of metal recovered in 1991 would have fit, Mr Gillespie said.

Meanwhile, Mr Gillespie’s group plans another expedition to Nikumaroro in 2015.

“There are some in the aviation community and the historical community who are very sceptical of their claims,” Dick Knapinsky, spokesman for the Experimental Aircraft Association, said.

“How do you establish that a piece of aluminium belonged to a certain Lockheed Electra unless there’s a serial number or something on it?”

– with ABC

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