SYDNEY (dpa): A search for Amelia Earhart's plane, which crashed during her 1937 round-the-world flight, ended without success, researchers said on Monday.
Searchers travelled to the remote Nikumaroro Island, part of Kiribati archipelago in the Pacific, to investigate the so-called Taraia Object, spotted in a lagoon in aerial imagery in 2020.
In a statement released by Purdue University in the US state of Indiana, searchers said the anomaly was not a piece of plane wreckage but likely a collection of large trees.
By the time the team arrived at the site, most of the debris had fragmented and washed away.
"Amelia Earhart's spirit of courage and curiosity drove every step of the search," Archaeological Legacy Institute executive director Rick Pettigrew said.
"We accomplished our goal to determine what the Taraia Object was, and we're deeply grateful to the private donors who shared our vision and made this journey possible. Our team remains in great spirits and proud of what was accomplished," said Pettigrew, the team leader.
Expedition member Steve Schultz said the group set out to test a hypothesis and followed the evidence to the end.
"While the Taraia Object did not prove to be what we hoped, the journey produced new discoveries, added to the world's knowledge of Nikumaroro, and wrote another extraordinary chapter in a story of discovery and exploration," he said.
"Amelia Earhart never gave up -- she kept pushing boundaries and flying into the unknown. That same fire fuels our search. She kept flying, and we will keep searching."
Earhart's plane vanished without a trace over the Pacific in 1937 during her attempt to circumnavigate the globe. Her body was never found.
Many legends and conspiracy theories still surround the flight and Earhart's whereabouts, although the consensus among historians is that the then 39-year-old crashed and died.
In 1928, Earhart became the first woman to fly across the Atlantic, although she was a passenger. In 1932, the aviation pioneer made the first solo flight by a woman across the Atlantic as a pilot. - dpa
