Starting about the middle of August 2014, the 30-day expedition will be carried out by The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery (TIGHAR), which has long been investigating the last, fateful flight taken by Earhart 76 years ago. The tall, slender, blond pilot mysteriously vanished while flying over the Pacific Ocean on July 2, 1937, during a record attempt to fly around the world at the equator. The general consensus has been that Earhart's twin-engined Lockheed Electra had run out of fuel and crashed in the Pacific Ocean, somewhere near Howland Island. “She and her navigator Fred Noonan sent radio distress calls from the aircraft for the next five nights before the Electra was washed over the reef edge by rising tides and surf,” Gillespie said.
– The search is back on: The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery is returning to the Pacific island of Nikumaroro next year to hunt for wreckage from Amelia Earhart's plane, reports NBC News. TIGHAR has already undertaken several expeditions at the site, where it believes Earhart and navigator Fred Noonan may have lived after landing on the surrounding reef. This time around, TIGHAR is looking for the mysterious "Bevington Object" spotted in a 1937 picture taken by British Colonial Service officer Eric Bevington. TIGHAR thinks the object, first noticed in 2010, might show the landing gear from Earhart's plane's wreckage. The organization will used manned submersibles to go as deep as 3,280 feet, searching an area a mile wide. "Live searching by three people aboard each sub looking at wide vistas illuminated by powerful lights is far superior to searching by looking remotely via the toilet-paper tube view provided by a video camera on an ROV," says TIGHAR's executive director, according to Discovery. During the 30-day Niku VIII expedition, searchers will also look for evidence of a campsite along the shore.