US researchers launch new mission to solve mystery of Amelia Earhart's fate
A satellite image may show part of Earhart's Lockheed Electra 10E protruding from the sand on Nikumaroro, an isolated island in Kiribati about 1,000 miles from Fiji, according to Richard Pettigrew, head of the Archaeological Legacy Institute, a non-profit based in Oregon.
'What we have here is maybe the greatest opportunity ever to finally close the case,' Pettigrew said in a news release. 'With such a great amount of very strong evidence, we feel we have no choice but to move forward and hopefully return with proof.'
Earhart and her navigator Fred Noonan vanished on 2 July 1937, exactly 88 years ago, during their attempt to circumnavigate the globe, leaving behind one of history's most puzzling aviation mysteries.
Now, Purdue University, where Earhart once taught and which contributed funding for her flight, is organizing a team to travel to Nikumaroro this November. The group hopes to uncover and recover remains of the aircraft.
'We believe we owe it to Amelia and her legacy at Purdue to fulfill her wishes, if possible, to bring the Electra back to Purdue,' Steve Schultz, the university's general counsel, told NBC News.
Pettigrew believes the object spotted in the satellite photo aligns in size and material with Earhart's aircraft. He also noted its position is near her intended route and close to where four of her emergency radio transmissions are thought to have originated. The image was taken in 2015, a year after a powerful cyclone may have exposed the site by shifting sand, Pettigrew said. He later presented the findings to Purdue.
Additional signs suggesting Earhart's presence on the island include American-made tools and a small medicine bottle, Pettigrew added.
Back in 2017, four specially trained dogs and archaeologists from the International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery (Tighar) also explored Nikumaroro.
Still, not everyone is convinced. Ric Gillespie, Tighar's executive director, has led 12 previous expeditions to the island and believes Earhart probably landed and died there. However, he doubts the satellite image shows a plane. Instead, he told NBC he thinks the object could be a coconut palm tree and root ball pushed ashore during a storm.
Schultz said Earhart had intended to return the plane to Purdue after the journey so it could be studied by future aviation students. The Purdue Research Foundation has approved $500,000 in funding for the first phase of the trip.
The team will take six days to reach Nikumaroro by boat and will have five days on the island to search for the object and attempt to identify it as the missing plane.
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'The plane ending up in the deep water is not actually a likely scenario, given what we know about the prevailing winds and currents along the northwestern edge of the island,' they explained. In 2017, the International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery (TIGHAR) also investigated the island, deploying search dogs that detected the scent of human remains. But once again, no physical evidence was recovered. Earhart's connection to Purdue University adds another dimension to the search. Before the flight, she was hired by the university to advise women on career opportunities. 'About nine decades ago, Amelia Earhart was recruited to Purdue,' said current Purdue president Mung Chiang. 'The university president later worked with her to prepare an aircraft for her historic flight around the world.' Earhart was born in Atchison, Kansas on July 24, 1897. Her father was a railroad lawyer, but later suffered from alcoholism and the family often struggled for money. They moved often, but Earhart completed high school and then started at the Ogontz School in Pennsylvania. She left junior college early to become a nurse's aide in Toronto after visiting her sister in Canada and deciding to care for soldiers wounded in World War I. After the war, she started a premed program at Columbia but quit when her parents insisted she move back home to live with them in California. That was where she took her first flight in 1920, as a passenger with veteran flyer Frank Hawks. She was immediately entranced, saying: 'As soon as I left the ground, I knew I had to fly.' She started lessons - paying for them through her work as a telephone company clerk, and then bought her first plane in 1921, a Kinner Airster. Earhart set her first record just two years after she flew for the first time and before she even had her official pilot's license. In 1922, she became the first woman to fly at 14,000 feet. 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