Amelia’s disappearance left search team baffled
JULY 2, 1937
AMELIA EARHART is a name that has gone down in history.
A determined woman, she achieved numerous aviation records, including becoming the first female to fly solo over the Atlantic and setting the women’s altitude record of 14,000 feet.
The aviator, from Kansas, was also a champion of women’s rights.
But it wasn’t enough for Amelia. She also wanted to circumnavigate the globe – ironic for someone who was unimpressed by planes at a young age.
In Last Flight, a book of diary entries published posthumously, Amelia wrote of being unmoved by “a thing of rusty wire and wood” at the Iowa State Fair in 1908.
Sadly, although flying would become Amelia’s passion, it would also be the death of her and navigator Fred Noonan.
July 2, 1937, was the fateful day when Amelia would enter history books for her puzzling disappearance.
And like many famous figures, her death sparked theories.
Was she on a spy mission for Franklin Roosevelt?
Perhaps she landed on a desert island and became a Japanese prisoner?
A far-more-likely scenario, however, is that her plane ran out of fuel near Howland Island – almost halfway between Australia and Hawaii – and sank quickly.
We’ll probably never know, but the search for her continues.
It was an expensive hunt, too, setting back authorities a total of $4 million – the most-costly and intensive air and sea search in history at that time.
Prior to her last-ever flight, Amelia had emulated American aviator Charles Lindbergh.
Given that they both had careers in flying and that she resembled the latter physically, Amelia earned herself the nickname Lady Lindy, and was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross for her Atlantic crossing.
She decided that her next trip
would be to fly around the world.
Amelia crashed her plane on takeoff, however, and it had to be sent away for repairs.
In June, she began a second attempt. To this day, no one knows why, but she left behind important communication instruments.
The journey started well, with them making it to New Guinea in 21 days.
During the next leg, they disappeared while communicating with a US Coast Guard ship.
“We must be on you, but cannot see you – gas is running low,” she said in one of her lastever messages.
Over the years, a few potential artefacts have been found, including evidence of campfire sites, and a jar of the brand of freckle cream Earhart used, but the truth remains elusive.
The house where she was born is now the Amelia Earhart Birthplace Museum and is maintained by The Ninety-Nines, a group of female pilots of whom Earhart was the first elected president.
No one knows why she left important instruments behind