Last week, The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery  (TIGHAR), released new research claiming that a riveted aluminum piece found in 1991 on the atoll of Nikumaroro, an uninhabited island in the Republic of Kiribati, is likely a patch from Amelia Earhart’s plane.

Forensic imaging expert Jeff Glickman still has months of work ahead in trying to confirm the claim, but he believes that imaging technology can solve the enigma of Amelia Earhart’s 77-year-old disappearance.

The aviator vanished in 1937, aboard a Lockheed Model 10 Electra with twin engines during an attempt to fly around the world. People have been searching for her remains and her aircraft ever since.

Last week’s announcement came after it was noticed that the 19-by-23-inch (48 by 58 centimeters) sheet of aluminum has a similar size and shape as a shiny patch that appears on the side of Earhart’s plane in a 1937 photograph from the Miami Herald. This retrofitted metal piece covered a custom window that appeared in earlier photographs of Earhart’s Lockheed Model 10 Electra. (Via National Geographic)

According to a summary on TIGHAR’s website, the hypothesis of the organization’s long-running Earhart Project is that Earhart and her navigator, Fred Noonan, did not crash in the Pacific Ocean when they ran out of fuel somewhere near Howland Island. Instead, they made a forced landing on Nikumaroro, at the time known as Gardner Island and lived as castways before eventually dying.

TIGHAR group has made 10 trips to the remote Pacific atoll and another expedition is planned to happen in 2015.

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