The Buckingham

Photo Credit: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/47011937/ns/technology_and_science-science/

After two unsuccessful missions to find where Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan crashed in 1937, Jon Thompson, 72, thinks that 2012 could finally be the year.

He believes that with the technology and minds that will be employed, they will be able to find the trail. Along with a team from the deep-sea exploration company Nauticos, they will be taking a two-month excursion to the ocean about 20 miles from Howard Island, and searching an area of 400- to 600-square miles.

In March, the International Group for Historic Aircraft, lead by Ric Gillespie, has said that a U.S. State Department has an image of what could be aircraft landing gear found on an island in the Pacific now known as Kiribati, and back then was called Nikumaroro. Gillespie’s team will return there in July for two weeks for a search.

Thompson, meanwhile, will be a sonar operator on a ship captained by David Jourdan, who used high-tech equipment in 1999 to find the Israeli submarine the Dakar, which had gone missing in 1968. They believe the Earhart and Noonan crashed in the ocean, which is why all past attempts have failed.

Thompson, who in the fall will be undergoing proton therapy for prostate cancer, has already planned out the exhibit for the artifacts that they will hopefully find, which could include Earhart’s jewelry, helmet, and leather jacket.