Oceanographer Robert Ballard is searching a tiny Pacific island for the iconic aviator and her plane.
The disappearance of Amelia Earhart - and the theories about what happened to her - have captured imaginations for decades.
Her flight was a sensation. It was followed by the press in every country she passed through and made headlines around the world. One more refuelling stopover and she'd be in Hawaii - and from there it would be back to the US mainland. But after she took off from the town of Lae in Papua she never made it to that next stopover, on the tiny island of Howland in the Pacific."Her disappearance without a trace is still one of the greatest mysteries of all time," Ms Cochrane says.As far as oceanographers go, Robert Ballard brings as much star power as possible.
When Earhart was scheduled to reach Howland Island on 2 July 1937 for refuelling, a US Coast Guard ship deployed to assist her was duly waiting for the Lockheed Electra plane to appear at the horizon. If that happened, it would have merely bought them a few days. There's no fresh water on the tiny atoll and they would have died as castaways.Earhart's disappearance sparked an immediate search operation involving the US Navy and Coast Guard. No clue was found and the official line - shared by most Earhart experts - is that the plane crashed into the ocean somewhere near Howland Island.
The bones, found in the 1940s, were first interpreted as male, then lost, and later - based only on photos - identified by forensics as possibly being from a female of taller-than-average European build.The Nikumaroro theory is most prominently backed by Ric Gillespie, the head of The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery .
"These repeated, high-profile attempts to solve the mystery naturally attract media attention," Mr Gillespie explains.
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