Sonar image was rock formation, not Amelia Earhart plane: explorer

A sonar image suspected of showing the remains of the plane of Amelia Earhart, the famed American aviatrix who disappeared over the Pacific in 1937, has turned out to be a rock formation.

Deep Sea Vision (DSV), a South Carolina-based firm, released the blurry image in January captured by an unmanned submersible of what it said may be Earhart’s plane on the seafloor.

Not so, the company said in an update on Instagram.

“After 11 months the waiting has finally ended and unfortunately our target was not Amelia’s Electra 10E (just a natural rock formation),” Deep Sea Vision said.

“As we speak DSV continues to search.The plot thickens with still no evidence of her disappearance ever found.”

The image was taken by DSV during an extensive search in an area of the Pacific to the west of Earhart’s planned destination, remote Howland Island.
Earhart went missing while on a pioneering round-the-world flight with navigator Fred Noonan. Her disappearance is one of the most tantalising mysteries in aviation lore, fascinating historians for decades and spawning books, movies and theories galore.

The prevailing belief is that Earhart, 39, and Noonan, 44, ran out of fuel and ditched their twin-engine Lockheed Electra in the Pacific near Howland Island while on one of the final legs of their epic journey.

Earhart, who won fame in 1932 as the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic, took off on May 20, 1937, from Oakland, California, hoping to become the first woman to fly around the world.

She and Noonan vanished on July 2, 1937, after taking off from Lae, Papua New Guinea, on a challenging 4000km flight to refuel on Howland Island, a speck of a US territory between Australia and Hawaii.

They never made it.

AFP

Roads, rates and rubbish. Or not (the Tele):

Clover Moore’s City of Sydney council will donate $22,000 to Rising Tide to help it cover costs after more than 170 people were arrested at the activist group’s Port of Newcastle protest.

Ms Moore’s council ally, Jess Miller, moved a motion on Monday night to donate the money, from the city’s Contingency Fund, for Rising Tide to use on “whatever they so choose”.

‘Whatever they so choose’ will in all likelihood involve purple hair dye, amyl nitrite and nose rings.

All councillors except Liberal Lyndon Gannon voted for the donation, as part of a motion calling on Premier Chris Minns to repeal anti-protest laws.

The no-strings-attached donation could end up going to cover legal costs or fines incurred by serial protesters who blocked Australia’s busiest coal port over the weekend.

Mr Gannon labelled the donation a “slap in the face to everyone that is living in the real world”.

Correct, Mr Gannon. Correct.

Clover Moore is a NSW B-grade version of Daniel Andrews. The sort of thing that would arrive packaged at your front door if you bought Daniel Andrews on wish.com.