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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
World
Oliver Holmes in Bangkok

Amelia Earhart researchers leave remote atoll empty-handed after ‘plane debris’ found to be a clump of trees

Amelia Earhart smiles in the cockpit of her autogiro, wearing a flying helmet and goggles
Amelia Earhart in the cockpit of a plane in 1931. She and her navigator Fred Noonan vanished on 2 July 1937 during their attempt to circumnavigate the globe. Photograph: Bettmann/Bettmann Archive

A US expedition that voyaged to a remote Pacific island in the hope of solving the mystery of what happened to pioneering pilot Amelia Earhart has said an object they suspected to be her plane was a clump of washed-up trees.

“Unfortunately, we weren’t able to find that smoking gun,” said Steve Schultz of Purdue University, standing on the sand in front of a blue lagoon on the atoll of Nikumaroro, about halfway between Australia and Hawaii.

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