Amelia Earhart's plane could be 'well preserved' but there's no guarantee it's been found, expert says

• New sonar images found in the hunt for Amelia Earhart's lost plane have excited experts.
• The tantalizing pictures show a plane-like fuzz deep in the middle of the Pacific.

Experts have rushed to weigh in following news of tantalizing sonar imagery in the hunt for Amelia Earhart's lost plane — which, even if it has not been found, could still be well-preserved in its final resting place.

In December, researcher Tony Romeo returned from a search expedition with fuzzy images, first published last week in The Wall Street Journal, of a plane-shaped patch on the ocean floor.

The images caused worldwide excitement, adding another possibility to the string of plausible — and not-so-plausible — theories about the celebrated aviator's disappearance.

They were taken at a depth of 16,400 feet, about 100 miles from Howland Island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, which Romeo's team considered one of the likeliest areas for Earhart's plane to have come down.

"The next step is confirmation — we've got to go back out with different sorts of sensors and really photograph it well and take a look at how the artifact is sitting on the seabed," Romeo told Business Insider's Katherine Tangalakis-Lippert and Rebecca Rommen.

Romeo doesn't believe "we're there yet," he added. But it's been enough to pique the interest of oceanographers, as well as experts at the Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum.

Romeo also said in a statement that "we always felt that Earhart would have made every attempt to land the aircraft gently on the water."

David Jourdan, the cofounder of deep-sea exploration company Nauticos, told CNN that regardless of whether the images really show Earhart's plane, at that depth the aircraft itself could potentially be well-preserved due to the cold temperatures and low oxygen of the waters.

The plane is made primarily from aluminum, Jourdan told The Washington Post back in 2001, discussing a search at a similar depth and location.

"It's too deep to be disturbed by dredgers or fishing boats, it may even still be intact," he said at the time.

At those temperatures, even Earhart's charts and other papers may have been preserved, The Post and Courier reported.

However, Jourdan is skeptical that the sonar images necessarily show a plane, telling CNN: "It is impossible to identify anything from a sonar image alone as sound can be tricky and the artifact could be damaged in unpredictable ways altering its shape."

Others also suggest caution.

Underwater archaeologist Megan Lickliter-Mundon told The New York Times that as exciting as it is to see an aircraft-shaped image, it would be a surprise for the plane to be as intact as the image suggests after so long.