Expedition to find Amelia Earhart's missing plane comes up empty

By Jordan Freiman News Editor Jordan Freiman is a news editor for CBSNews.com. He covers breaking news, trending stories, sports and crime. Jordan has previously worked at Spin and Death and Taxes. Read Full Bio October 18, 2026 / 9:48 PM EDT / CBS News Add CBS News on Google A group of researchers who were hoping to find the missing plane of Amelia Earhart near a remote island in the South Pacific announced Sunday that they did not find the long-lost aircraft."Evidence gathered at the Taraia Peninsula on Nikumaroro confirmed that the visual anomaly first seen in satellite imagery in 2020 was likely a collection of large trees deposited along the peninsula's sandspit," the researchers said. "By the time the team arrived at the site, a good portion of the debris had fragmented and washed away, leaving only a single Y-shaped segment," which they said is what they had initially hoped was the plane.This is a breaking news story. It will be updated. In: Amelia Earhart