A January 29 National Geographic article titled “Has Amelia Earhart’s Plane Really Been Found?” confronted Mr. Romeo with TIGHAR’s observation that the supposed aircraft in the image has swept wings. 

Romeo dismisses this criticism. Both the wings and the tail look swept back due to distortion caused by the AUV moving through the water, he says, pointing to the twin fins on the back of the plane instead. “That’s very distinctive of her aircraft,” he says. “There’s only a couple of planes that’ve ever been made like that.”

That’s simply not true. If a sonar device moving through the water caused distortion, all sonars – whether towed, on AUVs, or mounted on ships – would be useless. We have hundreds of sonar returns from the AUV we used in 2012. The images all turned out to be coral rocks, but none are distorted.

That the image shows twin fins is his interpretation, but dozens of aircraft types had twin fins, including Lockheed PV-1 Venturas which operated in the region during WWII.

The Lockheed PV-1 Ventura was a long range patrol bomber.

In an interview with LiveScience the same day, Mr. Romeo offered a different explanation for the supposed distortion.

It is important to note that sonar data will appear more and more stretched the further the target is from the sonar. For this reason the wings appear to be stretched or ‘swept,’ said Romeo, who has invested $11 million in the trip.

That’s not true either. The further the sonar is from the bottom, the wider the swath it covers and the less resolution you get, but targets are not distorted.

Yesterday, the New York Times joined the fray with an article titled, “An Explorer Believes He found Amelia’s Plane. Experts Aren’t Convinced.” Among the experts quoted in the article is Dr. Megan Lickliter-Mundon, TIGHAR’s underwater archaeologist on the 2012 Niku VII expedition.

Expedition Leader Ric Gillespie and Underwater Archaeologist Megan Lickliter-Mundon aboard the University of Hawaii oceanographic research vessel KOK at Nikumaroro, July 2012. TIGHAR photo by L. Rubin.

“The image is really exciting in the fact that it obviously shows an aircraft or what looks like an aircraft,” said Megan Lickliter-Mundon, an underwater archaeologist who has searched for sunken airplanes. But to confirm that it is actually a plane, she said, researchers would have to take additional sonar images from different angles. Then they would have to use a remotely operated vehicle with a video camera to see if the plane has any serial numbers or markings that would identify it as Earhart’s.”

Megan was speaking from bitter experience. In 2012 we had an exciting sonar image from the BlueFin21 AUV we were using. Nearly a thousand feet down the steep reef slope was what looked for all the world like an outer wing panel from a Lockheed Electra. Upon inspection with the ROV, it turned out to be just another piece of wreckage from the stern of SS Norwich City.

Contact Report. We could even count the wings ribs. Photo courtesy Phoenix International.

So far, Mr. Romeo has offered two explanations for the swept wings (the most damning evidence that his sonar image does not show a Lockheed Electra), and neither of them (pardon the expression) holds water. We’ll continue to monitor press coverage of this developing story.

TIGHAR is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization. Donations to TIGHAR are tax-deductible to the extent permitted by law.