Discovery Channel trying to finally solve the enduring mystery of Amelia Earhart final crash site.

Discovery Channel (DStv 121) and the International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery (TIGHAR) departed this week for Honolulu to try and finally answer and solve the mystery of the missing aviator Amelia Earhart in an upcoming new TV special.

Discovery and TIGHAR will be looking for evidence of Amelia Earhart's long-lost Lockheed Electra aircraft. The onboard and underwater fidnings of the Niku VII7 expedition will be captured by the Discovery Channel and broadcast as a special documentary.

The expedition over 26 days with an 18 people research team is going to try and locate, indetify and photograph any and all surviving aircraft wreckage they believe may still be in the deep waters surrounding Nikumaroro (formerly Gardner Island), an uninhabited coral atoll in the southwestern-Pacific Republic of Kiribati.

The underwater search will focus on the reef slope off of the west end of Nikumaroro, where waters can reach depths of upto 1 500 metres with the use of specialized robotic equipment. "The search for answers in the Earhart mystery has been a decades-long passion for all members of TIGHAR," says Richard Gillespie, TIGHAR's executive director and expedition leader in a statement.

"The exhaustive research leading up to today's departure gives us great hope that the Niku VII7 expedition will provide conclusive answers in the search for Earhart's final landing place."