Do we finally know Amelia Earhart's final resting place?

The pioneering aviatrix's plane disappeared over the Pacific Ocean more than 70 years ago as she was trying to fly around the world. For years it was widely believed that she and navigator Fred Noonan, having difficulty finding Howland Island, ran out of gas, crashed into the ocean and drowned. But new research suggests the fliers survived for an indeterminate amount of time after their plane fell out of the sky.

Discovery.com reports that The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery (TIGHAR) has determined with a "high degree of certainty" that aluminum debris found 25 years ago on Nikumaroro, an uninhabited Pacific atoll, belongs to Earhart's Lockheed Electra plane.

The group, which has been investigating Earhart's final flight for years, says the debris is an aluminum patch that replaced a window. It was installed on the plane during Earhart's Miami stopover in late May, 1937. Earhart and Noonan vanished over the Pacific on July 2 of that year.

Ric Gillespie, executive director of TIGHAR, told Discovery.com that "the Miami patch was an expedient field repair. Its complex fingerprint of dimensions, proportions, materials and rivet patterns was as unique to Earhart's Electra as a fingerprint is to an individual."

So what does this mean? Gillespie believes it is strong evidence that Earhart and Noonan did not crash into the ocean, that instead they made a forced landing on Nikumaroro's coral reef. U.S. Navy aircraft searching for the fliers in the week after the Lockheed Electra disappeared did fly over or near Nikumaroro but did not spot anyone. Chances are, TIGHAR says, Earhart and Noonan eventually died of exposure and starvation.

-- Douglas Perry