Amelia Earhart Found? Mystery Plane Window Could Solve Disappearance

An aluminium fragment found 23 years ago may be the key to solve the 77-year-old disappearance of Amelia Earhart.

The numbers augur well for numerologist as 23 and 77 equals 100, which may indicate the chance of finally unraveling the almost eight decades old mystery.

Researchers of The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery (TIGHAR) are now in the strong opinion that the fragment found in 1991 is actually part of Amelia Earhart's long-missing plane, reports Time.

The aluminium fragment was found off the coast of Nikumaroro, an atoll in the southwestern Pacific republic of Kiribati, reports MSN News.

TIGHAR researchers believe that the fragment, measuring 19 inches by 23 inches, was part of the custom window added to Amelia Earhart's Lockheed Electra plane, notes Time.

The custom window was installed to Amelia's plane when she took an eight-day rest stop in Miami, the fourth leg of her journey to circumnavigate the world, details MSN News.

On October 28, TIGHAR posted on The Earhart Project portion of its website the picture of Amelia Earhart's plane taken on July 1, 1937 courtesy of The Miami Herald, side by side with the photo of the metal patch.

The metal patch replaced a navigation window. When researchers finally identified the patch based on the 1937 photograph, they compared it to the patch of the Lockheed Electra aircraft at Wichita Air Services in Newton, Kansas, notes Discovery News.

"The Miami (metal) patch was an expedient field repair. It's complex, fingerprint of dimensions, proportions, materials, and rivet patterns, (which) was unique to Earhart's Electra as a fingerprint to an individual," tells Ric Gillespie, Executive Director of TIGHAR, to Discovery News.

"This is the first time an artifact found on Nikumaroro has been shown to have a direct link to Amelia Earhart," Gillespie pronounced with an obvious tinge of excitement.

After Earhart and his navigator Fred Noonan have gone missing in 1937, the general assumption was that her plane crashed somewhere in the Pacific Ocean before reaching Howland Island, which was their target destination.

With the latest finding about the aluminum patch, TIGHAR believes that it can finally lead to determining Amelia Earhart's final resting place, enthuses Time.

Time said that the researchers are now on in unison in believing that Earhart has landed on a reef at Nikumaroro, sending out distress calls thereafter for as many as five nights before her Lockheed Electra aircraft was swept out to sea.

TIGHAR researchers will be going back to Nikumaroro on July 2015 to search for more clues to validate their newfound theory. The organization is now seeking funds to finally resolve the 77-year old Amelia Earhart disappearance, cites MSN News.