Amelia Earhart's missing plane may have been found by an exploration team in the Pacific Ocean.

Amelia Earhart stands June 14, 1928 in front of her bi-plane called "Friendship" in Newfoundland. Getty Images Amelia Earhart'...

Amelia Earhart stands June 14, 1928 in front of her bi-plane called "Friendship" in Newfoundland.Getty Images

Amelia Earhart's missing plane may have been found by an exploration team in the Pacific Ocean.

New clues have surfaced in one of history's most intriguing mysteries: the disappearance of the iconic American aviator, Amelia Earhart.

Deep Sea Vision, an ocean exploration company headquartered in South Carolina, revealed on Saturday that it obtained compelling sonar images suggesting the presence of Earhart's plane at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean.

This breakthrough was achieved through the use of advanced unmanned underwater drones and a 16-person crew. They meticulously surveyed over 5,200 square miles of the ocean floor between September and December in their quest for answers.

Earhart and her navigator, Fred Noonan, vanished during her attempt to become the first female pilot to fly around the globe. Their intended stop was Howland Island, situated between Australia and Hawaii, for refueling. However, they never reached their destination. For decades, neither their bodies nor the plane were located, leading to numerous theories about their disappearance.

Experts caution that without clearer images, it's impossible to confirm if the object captured is Earhart's aircraft. "Until you physically take a look at this, there's no way to say for sure what that is," explained Andrew Pietruszka, an underwater archaeologist at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego, to the Wall Street Journal.

Numerous explorers have undertaken costly and unsuccessful efforts to locate Earhart's plane over the years. In 1999, Dana Timmer, a pilot and America's Cup sailor, led a $1 million deep-sea search, believing that sonar images hinted at potential plane locations. However, he couldn't secure funds to verify the findings. Another firm, Nauticos, conducted multiple expeditions between 2002 and 2017, yielding mostly marine debris.