Amelia Earhart: Mystery about missing pilot remains unresolved for the time being

Amelia Earhart shortly before her disappearance in 1937: Was she beached on a deserted island?

When Amelia Earhart disappeared without a trace, she had already made the majority of her journey: The adventurer had set out in 1937 to be the first man to orbit the earth on the equator. She had already successfully landed in Brazil, West Africa and India, but on the 2nd. In July 1937, she lost her track over the Pacific. Had her mission succeeded, she would have been the first woman to fly around the world once.

Researchers have been searching for the plane wreck for 89 years. Now there was another setback – the disappearance of the flight pioneer remains unresolved. But the search continues.

An expedition on a remote island in the South Seas should trace a new trail to their lost plane. But the supposed wreckage turned out to be washed-up logs, as scientists at Purdue University in the US state of Indiana announced. The university was Earhart’s former academic home.

Earhart was on a silver twin-engine plane with her navigator Fred Noonan when they disappeared. Her courage made her a legend – her disappearance a myth. Since then, speculation about the fate of the then 39-year-olds: Did she fall into the sea? Was she beached on an island? Or was she even captured?

In early October, Purdue researchers and a team from the nonprofit Archaeological Legacy Institute (ALI) set off for the tiny Nikumaroro Atoll in the island state of Kiribati, about halfway between Hawaii and Australia. Here they wanted to investigate a striking structure they knew from satellite images: the so-called Taraia object.

Amelia Earhart in 1928: Experienced pilot

For a long time it was thought that the object lying in the lagoon of the atoll could be Earhart's aircraft. The dimensions matched an aircraft, as did the shape. However, the evidence now gathered on site confirmed “that the visual anomaly visible for the first time on satellite images in 2020 was probably a collection of large trees deposited along the peninsula’s sandbank,” Purdue University reported. The supposedly metallic shining surface turned out to be solidified coral sand.

The researchers spent a total of seven days near the atoll, including four days on land. In the process, they discovered various artifacts, including a steel tube about 76 centimeters long in the lagoon. The findings will be further analyzed.

Although the new expedition did not provide direct evidence of Earhart's presence on Nikumaroro, the researchers emphasized the shipwrecked hypothesis. Thus, Earhart and Noonan did not immediately crash into the sea, but landed on the reef of the remote atoll and stranded there.

For this theory, historical radio bearings are cited, as well as photos, satellite images and objects found on the island. These include a women's shoe, a case, a vessel for freckle cream and a medicine bottle from the 1930s.

Human bones discovered on Nikumaroro in 1940 are also discussed in this context. A 2018 analysis concluded that they could likely have come from a woman with Earhart’s body size.

Amelia Earhart 1932 in Northern Ireland: where she landed, the enthusiasm was great

Purdue University announced it would continue the search for the plane wreck. “Amelia Earhart never gave up – she always went beyond borders and ventured into the unknown,” said expedition participant Steve Schultz. This irrepressible spirit of discovery also drives our search. She kept flying – and we will keep searching.

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