For over seven decades experts have been searching for the missing plane belonging to Amelia Earhart. In a new lawsuit, a Wyoming man claims a Delaware aircraft preservation group found the plane off the coast of Hawaii in 2010 and has been sitting on the discovery.
Timothy Mellon, the son of the late philanthropist Paul Mellon, filed a lawsuit against The International Group for Hispanic Aircraft Recovery, the Christian Science Monitor reports. They lawsuit is also against the group's executive director, Richard E. Gillespie. In the suit he claims the group solicited one million dollars from him for a bogus 2012 expedition to find Earhart's missing plane. He said the group forgot to tell him that the plane had been found two years earlier in a different underwater search. According to the Christian Science Monitor, Mellon claims the group did divulge the information so they could get money out of him.
In the lawsuit, Mellon said the 2010 underwater search about 1,800 miles south of Hawaii revealed images of the "wreckage of the Lockheed Electra flown by Amelia Earhart when she disappeared in 1937."
He said the group told him that search, which is scheduled for the end of next year, would only be possible if he helped. Reportedly he gave the group stock totaling more than a million dollars for the search.
Mellon's lawyer, Tim Stubson, said that he did view the images the lawsuit is referencing.
"As a layman, it is hard to see, unless you know what you're looking at," Stubson said in the lawsuit. "Much of it relates to the landing gear and parts that are unique to the landing gear."
The lawyer was not allowed to reveal the images but he added that Mellon did consult experts to view the images as well and they determined that the photos were in fact from Earhart's wreckage saying they reached a "definitive conclusion that that is in fact the wreckage, and it had been discovered two years before our client paid for another expedition."
The group, known as TIGHAR, denies the claims that the plane was ever found.
"I would tell you that there is no financial gain for us hiding the discovery of the most famous missing aviator in the history of aviation," Bill Carter, a lawyer representing the group and also was a member of the 2010 search team, said. "Just the opposite, we would want to publicize the finding to ensure that we can protect it adequately."
According to Newsmax, Stubson did admit that the group would probably have more to gain from going public with the information but said "for whatever reason they didn't do that in this case."
Carter and TIGHAR said that if there are any doubts about what they found all information regarding the expedition is available on their website for the public to view.
"TIGHAR does not possess any definitive evidence to the whereabouts of Earhart's Lockheed Electra, and did not conclusively make nay discoveries in 2010," he said adding that he has been a part of the group for 17 years and is still searching for the wreckage himself.
