Though she vanished nearly 90 years ago, flying legend Amelia Earhart never really left us.
The world remains fascinated – some say haunted – by her life, what she accomplished, and what she dared to try. And now a new search is getting underway for Earhart’s Lockheed Electra 10E, which was lost over the Pacific during her attempt to fly around the world in 1937.
The effort is the 20th organized search since Earhart, the celebrated pilot, and navigator Fred Noonan vanished July 2, 1937.
They were flying east from Lae in Papua New Guinea, trying to reach Howland Island, a tiny speck of land smaller than New York’s Central Park, located between Australia and Hawaii.
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The newest expedition, conducted by the Archaeological Legacy Institute and Purdue University, will dig up what’s known as the Taraia Object, a plane-shaped anomaly buried in ocean sediment in a lagoon of Nikumaroro Island. That’s a coral atoll about 350 miles southeast of Howland in the Pacific Ocean.
On the day Earhart went missing, the Coast Guard cutter USCGC Itasca was waiting near Howland to refuel the Electra after it landed. The ship received voice messages from Earhart as her signal increased. She said the plane was almost out of fuel.
Neither Earhart nor Noonan knew Morse code, so there was no two-way contact, according to the Smithsonian Institute’s analysis of government records.
It’s commonly believed Earhart ran out of fuel and crashed into the Pacific while searching for Howland. The U.S. Navy reached that conclusion after its 16-day search in 1937.
However, sophisticated satellite imagery, reported radio transmissions and other discoveries have lead some to theorize Earhart and Noonan landed on Nikumaroro reef. That theory says the two survived briefly as castaways and the bus-sized plane was swept into the sea.
The Nikumaroro theory is chiefly associated with TIGHAR, The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery, which has investigated the idea since 1988.
TIGHAR conducted a dozen expeditions to the island between 1989 and 2017. It says “whatever remains of the Electra lies in deep water off the island’s west end.”
The lost plane: Amelia Earhart’s Lockheed Electra
What will the new expedition do on Nikumaroro?
The 16-member Taraia Object Expedition will depart in early October. The group will spend several days on Nikumaroro, most of them in the lagoon, where they’ll use a hydraulic dredge to carefully remove sediment from what could be the Electra.
The team will be looking to identify the largest sections of the aircraft, the fuselage and wings. If they find rivets in aluminum aircraft skin, a comparison of their spacing and geometry will help identification.
If the ALI/Purdue team locates the Electra, they won’t go inside it but will return the following year for a full-scale excavation. Future efforts include removal of the aircraft and other remnants, which would be brought back to the United States.
Steve Schultz, senior vice president of Purdue University, said the institution is discussing an agreement with Kiribati, the island nation that maintains control of Nikumaroro, to entrust Purdue with custody of the wreckage, USA TODAY reported.
Earhart’s connection to Purdue dates to 1935, the university says. She was a career counselor for women and an adviser to Purdue’s Department of Aeronautics. The Amelia Earhart Terminal is part of the Purdue University Airport.
Where explorers have searched for Amelia Earhart
What clues led to Nikumaroro?
ALI/Purdue says the Taraia Object was revealed in satellite imagery in 2020, but photographs show it appears to have been in the same location in the lagoon since 1938. Other evidence includes:
- Radio bearings recorded from 1937 transmissions by the U.S. Navy, the U.S. Coast Guard and Pan American World Airways, converge on Nikumaroro.
- Human bones were discovered on the island in 1940. A 2018 analysis of bone measurements suggests they belonged to a woman of Earhart’s stature.
- Artifacts found on Nikumaroro included a woman’s shoe, a compact case, a freckle cream jar and a medicine vial. All dated to the 1930s.
- The Bevington Object, a photographic anomaly on the Nikumaroro reef captured three months after the Electra’s disappearance, appears to represent one of the plane’s landing gears.
What happened in past searches for Earhart?
In addition to the 12 TIGHAR expeditions, other searches include:
1937
- U.S. Navy and Coast Guard
- Where was the search? The initial search centered on Howland Island. It expanded west/northwest over open ocean and southeast toward the Phoenix Islands, including Nikumaroro.
- How long: 16 days (July 2-18)
- Type: Mostly open-ocean search by ships and aircraft. Navy planes overflew islands in the Phoenix Group, but no ground searches were conducted.
- Square miles: 262,281
- How many ships were used? Seven U.S. government ships, plus Navy aircraft
- Result: No evidence of Earhart or the plane was found.
2019
- Robert Ballard and National Geographic
- Where was the search? Nikumaroro Island
- How long: 18 days (Aug. 7-25, 2019)
- Type: The expedition mapped the seafloor around the island in search of the Electra.
- Square miles: 2,164
- How many ships were used? One, the research vessel E/V Nautilus and remotely operated vehicles
- Result: No Electra wreckage or remains of Earhart were found.
2023
- Deep Sea Vision
- Where was the search? 100 miles from Howland Island, about 16,000 feet underwater
- How long? September to December 2023
- Type of search: Sonar survey of the ocean floor
- Square miles: 5,200
- How many ships were used? One
- Result: Deep Sea Vision announced in January 2024 that it discovered sonar images of a plane-shaped object on the seafloor. In November 2024, it said the object was a plane-shaped natural rock formation.
Why was Amelia Earhart famous?
Earhart was already a well-known pilot when she and Noonan attempted the around-the-world flight. Among her accomplishments:
- Broke women’s altitude record with 14,000-ft. flight (1922).
- Published her first book “20 Hrs., 40 Minutes” (1928).
- Visited President Calvin Coolidge at the White House (1928).
- The second person to fly a solo, nonstop flight across the Atlantic Ocean (1932).
- The first person to fly a solo, nonstop flight across the U.S. (1932).
- The first person to fly solo from Honolulu to Oakland, California (1935).
- Became a visiting professor at Purdue University (1935).
Earhart was also friends with first lady Eleanor Roosevelt. On April 20, 1933, during a formal dinner – President Franklin Roosevelt wasn’t present – Earhart and Eleanor Roosevelt left the White House, drove to Hoover Field and took an unplanned flight to Baltimore.
Earhart is an enduring figure in American culture. The Postal Service issued an 8-cent U.S. airmail stamp with her image was issued July 24, 1963, which would have been Earhart’s 66th birthday. Mattel offered the Amelia Earhart Barbie in 2018 as part of its Inspiring Women Series.
LEGO offered its Amelia Earhart Tribute set in March 2021 in tribute to International Women’s Day. The red aircraft was Earhart’s Lockheed Vega 5B, which she flew solo across the Atlantic in May 1932. She flew from Harbor Grace, Newfoundland, to near Londonderry, Northern Ireland, in about 15 hours.
Earhart was the first woman and the second person after Charles Lindbergh to fly nonstop and alone across the Atlantic. The Vega is on display at the Barron Hilton Pioneers of Flightexhibit at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum.
How many organized searches have been conducted?
How many books have been written about Earhart?
Nearly a dozen of the books are written for children.
Want to know more?
Books about Amelia Earhart include:
- Amelia Earhart: A Biography, by Doris L. Rich, Smithsonian Institution Press (1989)
- East to the Dawn: The Life of Amelia Earhart, by Susan Butler, Addison-Wesley (1997)
- Finding Amelia: The True Story of the Earhart Disappearance, by Ric Gillespie, Naval Institute Press (2006)
- One More Good Flight: The Amelia Earhart Tragedy, by Ric Gillespie, Naval Institute Press (2024)
- The Aviator and the Showman, by Laurie Gwen Shapiro, Viking (2025)
- Lost: Amelia Earhart’s Three Mysterious Deaths and One Extraordinary Life, by Rachel Hartigan, National Geographic (2026)
Earhart herself wrote two books: 20 Hrs., 40 Min.: Our Flight in the Friendship (1928) and The Fun of It (1932). A third book, Last Flight (1937), lists her as the author, but it was published posthumously, using her writings, notes and flight material.
Contributing: Christopher Cann, Stephen Beard
Source: USA TODAY Network reporting and research; Reuters; Purdue University; The Earhart Project; Deep Sea Vision; Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum; U.S. Naval Institute; ameliaearhart.com; tighar.com; National Geographic