Researchers land on crab-infested Pacific island to search for Amelia Earhart's plane wreckage

A team from the Archaeological Legacy Institute and Purdue University has launched a five-day search of Nikumaroro Island after satellite imagery appeared to reveal a plane's tail, wing and fuselage lying metres from the shore. Richard Pettigrew, executive director of ALI, believes Earhart and co-pilot Fred Noonan made a navigational error in 1937 and touched down on the remote island rather than their intended destination of Howland Island. To avoid the giant Coconut crabs that swarm the island — their legs can span up to three feet — the researchers will return to their vessel each night, though the crabs themselves may hold clues about the fate of the crew.

Human bones recovered from the island in 1940 were re-examined in 2017 and found to resemble Earhart's skeletal dimensions more closely than 99% of the population.