Hopes of finding Amelia Earhart's missing plane are DASHED once again: Sonar image thought to be the wreckage of her aircraft turns out to be a 'bunch of rocks'

An 87-year-old quest to find Amelia Earhart's missing level looked similar it had yet travel to an extremity earlier this year. 

Following an extended expedition, explorers at South Carolina firm Deep Sea Vision said they'd recovered an 'aircraft-shaped object' successful the aforesaid portion of the Pacific wherever the legendary aviator vanished successful 1937. 

However, a 2nd expedition present reveals the entity is not an craft astatine all, but simply a bunch of rocks. 

Tony Romeo, laminitis of Deep Sea Vision, said successful a statement: 'This result isn't what we hoped for.

'The planetary effect to our archetypal find has been genuinely inspiring, a testament to Amelia and the propulsion of her unthinkable story.' 

Amelia Earhart was the archetypal pistillate aviator to alert solo crossed the Atlantic Ocean and 1 of the archetypal aviators to beforehand commercialized aerial travel.

The Kansas autochthonal was flying a Lockheed Model 10 Electra with navigator Fred Noonan erstwhile the craft vanished adjacent Howland Island connected July 2, 1937. 

At the time, she was attempting to go the archetypal pistillate to implicit a circumnavigational formation of the globe – but exactly what happened whitethorn everlastingly beryllium a mystery.  

Deep Sea Vision acceptable disconnected connected its archetypal hunt successful September 2023 successful an country of the Pacific to the westbound of Earhart's planned destination, the distant Howland Island. 

The unit spent 90 days searching 5,200 quadrate miles of the Pacific Ocean level – 'more than each erstwhile searches combined'.  

To their delight, blurry images of what appeared to beryllium an craft were captured by an underwater drone astatine a extent of astir 16,000 feet. 

Back successful January, erstwhile Deep Sea Vision released the imagery, Mr Romeo was assured that they'd solved the 87-year-old mystery. 

He said: 'You'd beryllium hard-pressed to person maine that's thing but an aircraft, for one, and two, that it's not Amelia's aircraft.' 

However, helium did admit that the drone's camera failed truthful they wanted to instrumentality to the tract to beryllium that it was Earhart's plane. 

Possibly getting up of himself, Mr Romeo reiterated his eventual extremity of pulling the level retired of the water. 

He said this summer: 'We request to see...is it inactive intact? Are the wings folded down. We request to spot however it's sitting successful the sediment, is successful mud, is it successful sand?

'And past we request to spot if there's a debris tract – are determination shoes extracurricular the plane, are determination pieces of the level adjacent that we request to interest astir salvaging?

'The level is sitting there, and it's dilatory disintegrating conscionable similar the Titanic.' 

Wasting nary time, the team's 2nd expedition this twelvemonth utilized the same Hugin 6000 underwater drone arsenic the archetypal expedition successful December 2023. 

Sadly, it identified 'an unfortunate stone formation' shaped similar an craft – meaning the hunt for the information erstwhile again continues. 

But Deep Sea Vision resolves to proceed its hunt 'for different 30 days to screen implicit 1,500 quadrate nautical miles', the institution said successful a statement. 

Exactly what happened to Amelia Earhart has agelong been a root of fascination for Mr Romeo, a erstwhile US Air Force quality serviceman who sold his commercialized spot investments to money his search.

He's reportedly spent $11 cardinal (£8.5 million) on the hunt for the aircraft's wreckage. 

Earhart – who won fame successful 1932 arsenic the archetypal pistillate to alert solo crossed the Atlantic – was connected 1 of the last legs of the circumnavigational formation of the globe successful 1937 erstwhile her level tragically crashed. 

This last fatal formation departed Lae Airfield successful Papua New Guinea and was heading eastbound with a destination of Howland Island, a travel of 2,556 miles. 

Both Earhart and Noonan, 44, were communicating with a adjacent Coast Guard ship, USCGC Itasca, earlier their level mislaid contact. 

In the past in-flight vigor connection heard by Itasca, Earhart said: 'We are connected the enactment 157 337 …. We are moving connected enactment northbound and south.'

The numbers 157 and 337 referred to compass headings – 157° and 337° – and described a enactment passing done their intended destination, Howland Island.

A fashionable and comparatively straightforward mentation is that the level crashed into the oversea erstwhile it ran retired of substance and past sank. 

Both Earhart and Noonan were either instantly killed upon interaction oregon were incapable to get retired and drowned, the mentation goes. 

The tragic nonaccomplishment has spawned much fantastical theories, including that they were eaten by the crabs and imprisoned by the Japanese. 

It's mostly agreed that the wreckage lies beneath the waves adjacent the planned destination Howland Island oregon different land astir 350 miles southeast called Nikumaroro. 

Experts precocious detected codification connected an aluminium sheet that was recovered washed up connected Nikumaroro successful 1991, thought to person been portion of Earhart's missing plane. 

However, investigation recovered the sheet did not beryllium to Earhart's Lockheed Electra but alternatively was portion of a level that crashed during World War Two astatine slightest six years later.