Three miles under the Pacific Ocean, in a darkness so absolute that many species of fish have no eyes, a deep-sea exploration company hopes to find the plane that disappeared in 1937 with legendary aviator Amelia Earhart aboard.

Finding it would solve one of the great mysteries of the 20th century and transform Nauticos from highly regarded sea sleuths to world-famous treasure hunters. But the search will put all the Hanover, Md., company's vaunted technical expertise to the test.

Earhart

People have been looking for Earhart's Lockheed Electra ever since she lost contact with a waiting Coast Guard cutter on a difficult, 2,556-mile leg of her journey from Lae, New Guinea, to tiny Howland Island. Flying into a head wind at the edge of her plane's range, she maintained intermittent radio contact with the cutter for several hours before disappearing. A rescue attempt began immediately. More than two weeks later, after spending $4-million and combing 250,000 square miles of ocean, the Navy gave up.

Others didn't. Theories as to where she crashed -- or landed -- abound. One group even says she and navigator Fred Noonan were captured while spying on a Japanese naval base for the United States.

David Jourdan, who founded Nauticos 15 years ago, doesn't believe that. He and his colleagues are using the theory advanced by Elgen and Marie Long, authors of Amelia Earhart: The Mystery Solved, that Earhart ran out of fuel within 100 miles of Howland Island and crashed into the sea. Nauticos, a privately held company that specializes in developing software and other tools for ocean exploration, plans to use research amassed by the Longs to narrow the search area to 600 square miles.

The location of the crash hinges on Earhart's talents as a pilot and her navigator's skills. In recent years, both have been called into question by historians who said that Earhart was overrated, that Noonan was an alcoholic and that their navigational mistakes could have put them hundreds of miles off course.

"We'd like to correct those stories, because Noonan was one of the best transoceanic navigators of the time," Nauticos general manager Tom Dettweiler said. "We're going to try to anticipate her actions based on what a good pilot would have done."

Nauticos' massive effort is scheduled to begin near year's end. Back-to-back expeditions could go on for three months and will cost at least $4-million.

Jourdan expects to recoup some or all of the cost by selling live documentary rights to a media giant such as Sony or the Discovery Channel.

"We're confident enough in our abilities that we could do our search under scrutiny," said Jourdan, whose company has had a string of successes in the past six years.

According to his research, Earhart's plane is lying about 18,000 feet deep. With a crushing pressure of 6,000 pounds per square inch, it's an environment as inhospitable to humans as outer space, and almost as difficult to explore.

Finding Earhart's plane isn't a pipe dream, but it will be much more difficult than Jourdan acknowledges, said Dana Yoerger, a scientist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution's Deep Submergence Laboratory.

The geology of the ocean floor will be crucial, Yoerger said. If it's mostly flat, a wreck will stand out. But if it's rugged, sonar could pick up hundreds of possible contacts.

Jourdan, 46, spent five years aboard Navy submarines, then worked on submarine systems and underwater navigation at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab. Dettweiler, 49, worked for a year with famed undersea explorer Jean-Jacques Cousteau and directed the Woods Hole operation that found the Titanic before joining forces with Jourdan in 1989.

They began searching for historic sunken treasure in 1995 after hearing the story of the Japanese submarine I-52.

In the waning days of World War II, the submarine was destined for occupied France with two tons of gold, which were to be traded for German technology. But U.S. bombers hit the I-52 with an experimental homing torpedo on June 23, 1944. The sunken submarine remained lost for 50 years.

Finding the I-52 whetted Nauticos' appetite for discovery. Its projects come from various sources: individual investors, entertainment companies such as the Discovery Channel or governments without the expertise to look for lost ships.

Two years ago, for example, Nauticos went in search of the Dakar, an Israeli submarine that mysteriously sank in 1968. The Israeli navy had been hunting for it for more than 30 years. Israel turned to Nauticos, which found the vessel in 1999 -- and, while doing so, also found a Greek trading vessel from approximately 300 B.C., a major archaeological find.

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