By Tim Binnall
A South Carolina man on a quest to solve the mystery of Amelia Earhart's disappearance will embark on a new expedition this August in the hopes of locating the pioneering pilot's downed plane. According to a local media report, Michael Carra is spearheading the ambitious search of Papua New Guinea, where he believes the famed aviatrix crashed in 1937. The expedition will focus on around a dozen locations on the island where he suspects Earhart's plane may be, including one particularly intriguing spot where a LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) scan picked up a peculiar anomaly resembling the lost aircraft.
August's expedition will be Carra's third such visit to the island following similar efforts in 2021 and 2022. While saying that he is "90% confident" that the trip will be a success thanks to insights from his previous searches, he also acknowledged that solving the longstanding aviation mystery is no small feat. "If it were easy, she would have been found by now," Carra mused, "it’s amazing she has been gone all this time."
The forthcoming expedition has been made possible by an anonymous benefactor who has provided "pretty open-ended" funding for the trip. "He asked me how much I needed for a week, and I told him," Carra recalled, "then he said, 'you can go for two and I will take care of it if you need to stay longer." That generosity allowed him to assemble a search team that includes "one of the top metal detectors in the world." Time will tell whether Cerra's latest effort will prove successful or if the answer to what he calls "the greatest American mystery in our history" will remain maddeningly out of reach.