Skeleton found on remote island ‘could be lost air pioneer Amelia Earheart’
It’s one of the greatest mysteries of aviation - the disappearance of record-breaking pilot Amelia Earheart in 1937.
But new analysis of a skeleton on a remote Pacific island suggests she may have died a castaway after landing there while attempting a round-the-world flight.
Earheart vanished while trying to find Howland Island in 1937 - but a skeleton with ‘unusually long forearms’ found on the island Nikumaroro might actually be the missing aviator, researchers from the Earheart Project.
The researchers write, ‘'there is a newly discovered similarity between Amelia Earhart and the castaway whose partial skeleton was found on Nikumaroro in 1940.’
The skeleton was found by a British colonial officer in 1940 - but it was initially thought to be male, and the idea that it might be Earheart was dismissed.
But now researchers say that the length of the forearm is typical of a woman born in the 1890s - lending weight to the idea it might be Earheart.
Researchers from The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery (TIGHAR) said, ‘The match does not, of course, prove that the castaway was Amelia Earhart but it is a significant new data point that tips the scales further in that direction.’
