Scientists Say They've Identified Fragment of Amelia Earhart's Lost Plane

A group of scientists says it has identified a piece of famed aviator Amelia Earhart's twin-engine Lockheed Electra, 77 years after her ill-fated flight around the world, Discovery.com reported.

The piece of debris — a custom-made, aluminum window patch — was discovered back in 1991 on the uninhabited atoll of Nikumaroro, part of the southwestern Pacific republic of Kiribati.

Researchers from The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery (TIGHAR) say that its new analysis suggests Earhart and her navigator, Fred Noonan, made a forced landing on a small, sandy island in the southwest Pacific before dying as castaways there. It has long been believed that Earhart's plane crashed in the Pacific Ocean after running out of fuel.

According to TIGHAR, the patch is "as unique to her particular aircraft as a fingerprint is to an individual." On top of that, TIGHAR says, its 10 archaeological expeditions to Nikumaroro have yielded strong circumstantial evidence that castaways were once present there.

TIGHAR has been trying to unravel the mystery of Earhart's doomed flight for years, and it called its latest identification a breakthrough in the case.

Its researchers are set to return to Nikumaroro in June 2015 to explore a mysterious object 600 feet underwater that it says could be Earhart's plane. The expedition will also search for smaller objects at shallower depths.

Earhart was the first female pilot to fly across the Atlantic Ocean alone. Her plane disappeared over the Pacific Ocean on July 2, 1937, while she was attempting to circumnavigate the globe. She and Noonan, who was also on board, were never seen again.

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