It is one of the most enduring mysteries in aviation history. Now the explorer who found the wreck of the Titanic is turning his attention to another mystery of the deep by trying to locate the final resting place of American aviator.

Amelia Earhart, who disappeared over the Pacific in July 1937.

The US navy called off its search for the pilot after two weeks but the hunt for her plane has never really ended and, 82 years later, a new chapter is about to begin.

Next month, Robert Ballard, 77, will lead an expedition near a Pacific atoll that is part of the Republic of Kiribati.

Ms Earhart, who had won fame in 1932 as the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic, took off from Oakland, California, on May 20, 1937, aiming to become the first woman to fly around the world. 

Read more: How a key was blamed for the sinking of the Titanic

She was 39 and was accompanied by Fred Noonan, 44, a navigator.

Mr Ballard and his crew on the Nautilus exploration vessel have located not only Titanic but also the carrier USS Yorktown, lost at the Battle of Midway in 1942, a patrol boat commanded by John F Kennedy and several Roman wrecks. 

However, for decades they have avoided searching for Earhart’s Model 10 Electra, made by Lockheed.

Mr Ballard told the Washington Post: “Amelia Earhart has been on my sonar screen for a long, long time, and I’ve passed on it. I’m in the business of finding things. I don’t want to not find things.”

He said he had decided to take on the challenge at last after recent research and evidence gathered by another group of explorers convinced him that Ms Earhart’s plane might be found on the uninhabited Nikumaroro Island.

His team will search the land and surrounding sea for proof Ms Earhart and Mr Noonan ended up there. The expedition is being funded by National Geographic television channel and will be broadcast in October.

The searchers will use remotely operated underwater vehicles, one of which can dive to 13,000ft. On land, an archaeological team will investigate a camp site using search dogs and DNA sampling.

The belief that Ms Earhart and Mr Noonan crashed on Nikumaroro, formerly known as Gardner Island, is not the only theory. What is certain is they disappeared on July 2 on the final leg of the trip. Ms Earhart was looking for the tiny Howland Island, north-west of Nikumaroro.

Her final transmission was made after 20 hours of flight from New Guinea. 

Read more: 20 haunting photographs of the Titanic before it tragically sank on this day in 1912

“We must be on you but cannot see you — but gas is running low,” she reported to the Itasca, a US Coast Guard ship that was to provide her with bearings on the approach to her destination.

She then seemed to disappear without trace and some believe she crashed on land and survived, but the US navy has always considered it more likely the plane crashed at sea.

Her disappearance is one of the most tantalising aviation mysteries, fascinating historians and spawning books, movies and theories. Earhart hunters have looked for her on remote islands and sought the wreck of her plane on the ocean floor.

A photo unearthed from the US National Archives convinced one researcher she had been taken captive by the Japanese on one of the Marshall Islands as a prisoner of war. Nikumaroro was searched in 2012 but no evidence was found of the Electra. 

Mr Ballard believes looking for a trail of debris farther out from the island will lead to the site of the wreck. 

Unlike the search for the Titanic, there is not a huge swath of ocean to comb. Potential debris fields will orientate searchers using a path perpendicular to a found engine, pedal or wing, much like how the

Titanic’s detritus was a trail of bread crumbs leading to its rusticle-dotted husk.

A similar method was used by Mr Ballard to find Roman ships after discovering cargo thrown overboard 
as the vessels sank. Those ships were smaller than Ms Earhart’s Electra.

Mr Ballard said. “Push a plane off the cliff and it will leave stuff all along the way. All you need is one piece.”

Mr Ballard, founder of the Ocean Exploration Trust, said his mission will harness much of the evidence of the landing theory gathered by another group, the International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery that has led a dozen expeditions in the past 31 years.

Group founder Ric Gillespie said: “We will be delighted if Dr Ballard is able to provide the physical proof this is where Earhart ended up.”