ROBERT BALLARD FOUND THE TITANIC. WILL HE FIND AMELIA EARHART NEXT?

The sea explorer discusses his search for the iconic lost pilot in the new National Geographic special Expedition Amelia

BY KATE STOREY

Robert Ballard sits behind the control desk of the E/V Nautilus, his 64-meter research ship. It’s just after sundown in early August and they’re docked near Nikumaroro, a tiny island in the South Pacific halfway between New Guinea and Hawaii. The crew just dropped down the robot ROV Hercules into the black ocean, where it will crawl along 1,000 feet below, transmitting back footage of the still sea floor.

Ballard leans back in his chair, watching the screen flicker shades of blue and black, as images of rocks and coral come into focus. He’s looking for something that doesn’t belong, something that looks out of place, anything that catches his eye. The smallest piece of debris could break open one of the greatest mysteries of our lifetime. It could belong to the plane Amelia Earhart was flying when she disappeared without a trace in 1937.

“This is just the way you do it,” Ballard says to the crew in the dark control room. “You pop some popcorn and you go to the movies. I think we’re going to binge this for a couple of weeks, what do you think?”

Ballard’s done this before. The 77-year-old deep-sea explorer has earned a reputation for finding the unfindable. In 1985, he discovered the Titanic. In 1989, he found the German Battleship Bismark. And in 2002, he identified the missing patrol boat PT-109 commanded by John F. Kennedy before he became president.

“This is tougher,” Ballard tells me of the Earhart mission. “Am I confident? Sure. Give me enough time, I'll get it. It does exist. It's not the Loch Ness monster or Bigfoot. There is a plane down there.”

In a special airing on National Geographic on Oct. 20, Expedition Amelia, we see phase one of the exploration. Ballard’s crew focused on the ocean search, and archaeologists and geologists scoured the land. There had been incredibly compelling clues leading them to the northwest side of Nikumaroro. Everyone was sure they’d find something—a speck debris or a sliver of the plane. They didn’t. The search came up utterly empty. But, for Ballard and his crew, the story is just beginning…………….

https://www.esquire.com/entertainment/a29480815/expedition-amelia-earhart-robert-ballard-national-geographic-interview/