New search begins for Amelia Earhart plane suspected to be buried in lagoon
A 17‑member team from Purdue University and the Archaeological Legacy Institute has begun a new search on the uninhabited Pacific island of Nikumaroro for Amelia Earhart’s missing Lockheed Electra, targeting a sediment‑covered object believed to be the aircraft.
Correction:
A 17-member team from Purdue University is now searching a South Pacific island for Amelia Earhart's Lockheed Electra 10E aircraft, missing since the famed aviator vanished during an attempted around-the-world flight nearly 90 years ago.
The expedition team arrived at the western edge of the uninhabited island of Nikumaroro, Kiribati, on Oct. 12. The group will scour an island lagoon for what may be the submerged remains of the aircraft, looking for what has been labeled the Taraia Object on satellite images. They'll use a hydraulic dredge to carefully remove sediment from the object, which researchers believe could be the Electra.
The newest expedition is the 20th organized search for the plane. It's being conducted by the Archaeological Legacy Institute and Purdue University.
Nikumaroro Island is part of the Phoenix Islands of Kiribati. It's a coral atoll in the Pacific about 350 miles southeast of Howland and about 2,100 miles southeast of Hawaii.
Earhart and her navigator Fred Noonan were flying over the central Pacific near Howland Island when they disappeared on July 2, 1937. Despite widespread searches by the U.S. Navy and others, they were never found.
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The aviators 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.
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.
Where did Amelia Earhart disappear?
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."
Lockheed Electra may be submerged in lagoon
What will the expedition do on Nikumaroro?
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 trying to locate to 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.
What clues led to Nikumaroro?
ALI/Purdue says the findings from the satellite imagery, known as the Taraia Object, were revealed 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.
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