Ocean exploration firm says it may have found Amelia Earhart wreckage site

In a development that could finally bring answers to a mystery that has enthralled the world for decades, an exploration firm in South Carolina has just suggested that it may have found the wreckage of Amelia Earhart's ill-fated flight, as Fox News reports.

The potentially massive discovery was announced by Tony Romeo, CEO of Deep Sea Vision, and he says that a sonar image captured by his company could be that of the Lockheed 10-E Electra Earhart piloted.

In her attempt to become the first female to circumnavigate the globe by air back in 1937, Earhart sadly disappeared after having been last spotted in Papua New Guinea.

Questions surrounding her final hours have endured ever since, inspiring scholars and explorers to stay on the case in their search for the truth.

Despite ongoing searches and enduring hope in the aftermath of her disappearance, the groundbreaking aviator was ultimately declared dead in January 1939, but intense interest in Earhart's fate has lived on.

It was near Howland Island in the Pacific that her plane is believed to have gone down, and that is where researchers have focused their energies in the past.

Romeo, himself a pilot and a former U.S. Air Force intelligence officer, explained to the Wall Street Journal that he is cautiously optimistic that an image captured by sonar may well be that of Earhart's plane.

He went on, “I feel like a 10-year-old going on a treasure hunt,” expressing a level of excitement which could explain his decision to sell all of his commercial real estate holdings in order to fund his exploration.

It is not only Romeo and his team who believe that there may be some validity to the notion that he has indeed found the long-sought wreckage, given the specific geographic area he has described.

According to Dorothy Cochrane of the Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum, the area where Romeo's highlighted image was taken does indeed align with where researchers believe Earhart may have been prior to her disappearance.

As such, it seems that additional investigation of the zone is warranted and could yield the results for which Romeo has invested so much.

Speaking to the Wall Street Journal, Andrew Pietruszka, an underwater archaeologist stated, “Until you physically take a look at this, there's no way to say for sure what that is.”

According to the outlet, Romeo says he has every intention of returning to the relevant area to get more precise images of what lies on the ocean floor, and given the resources he has dedicated to the search thus far, it seems likely he will stay true to his word.

“This is maybe the most exciting thing I'll ever do in my life,” he said, expressing a sentiment with which history buffs and aviation fans everywhere most assuredly agree.