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New research into a fragment of an aluminum aircraft found in 1991 has identified it with a high degree of certainty as a piece of Amelia Earhart’s lost aircraft. It was found on the remote uninhabited atoll Nikumaroro in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. Research from the International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery claims the piece of metal is a patch that was installed on her plane during an eight-day stay in Miami, during her 1937 record attempt to fly around the world at the Equator. “The Miami patch was an expedient field repair,” said Ric Gillespie, executive director of TIGHAR. “Its complex fingerprint of dimensions, proportions, materials, and rivet patterns was as unique to Earhart’s Electra as a fingerprint is to an individual.”