Amelia Earhart searchers stick by 'castaway' theory after suspected plane wreckage turns out to be a pile of TREES

A shiny 'carbonate veneer' of coral sand gave the debris on Nikumaroro a metallic appearance. Purdue University has concluded that the Taraia Object, which appeared in satellite imagery in 2020, most likely consisted of large trees that washed onto a sandspit. By the time the 17-person team arrived, only a single Y-shaped fragment remained. Searchers continue to maintain that Earhart and Fred Noonan came down somewhere other than the ocean.

Earhart vanished over the Pacific in 1937, aged 39, attempting to circle the globe.

Expedition leader Rick Pettigrew insists the team 'remains in great spirits'.

The team did find a 30-inch steel tube, but nothing linked to Earhart's Electra.