Researchers from Purdue University and the Archaeological Heritage Institute in Oregon have launched a joint expedition to the Pacific Ocean to investigate a mysterious object that could be the missing airplane of aviation pioneer Amelia Earhart, according to CBS News.
The research team has traveled to the remote islands of Nikumaroro, where specialists believe a submerged object may be the wreckage of the aircraft used in Earhart's ill-fated 1937 round-the-world flight. Experts participating in the mission reported that they have very strong evidence supporting the hypothesis.
Nikumaroro is located approximately 640 kilometers southeast of Howland Island, the Pacific destination where Earhart and navigator Fred Noonan intended to land. Earhart vanished in July 1937 alongside Noonan during their attempt to complete a circumnavigation of the globe along its longest route across the equator.
Target area and historical context
Earhart was a celebrated American author and pioneer who achieved global fame in 1932 as the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean. Her 1937 equatorial flight was designed to be the ultimate aviation milestone, traversing the widest circumference of the Earth.
Purdue University, located in West Lafayette, Indiana, shared a close relationship with Earhart during her lifetime, funding the acquisition of her Lockheed Model 10-E Electra twin-engine airliner. The aircraft was custom-fitted with supplementary fuel tanks to handle the long oceanic legs of the journey.
Nikumaroro, formerly known as Gardner Island, is an uninhabited coral atoll in the western Pacific Ocean that forms part of the Phoenix Islands in Kiribati. Howland Island, an unorganized territory of the United States situated near the equator, had been equipped with a special landing strip to facilitate Earhart's planned refueling stop.
Previous discoveries and ocean searches
The current field expedition follows a separate finding reported in 2024 by ocean exploration company Deep Sea Vision. The firm announced that it had located sonar images of wreckage matching the shape of a Lockheed 10-E Electra on the floor of the Pacific Ocean after scanning more than 5,200 square miles, or about 13,400 square kilometers, of seabed.
The Archaeological Heritage Institute, a non-profit organization based in Oregon that specializes in archaeological research and site preservation, is now working alongside Purdue specialists at Nikumaroro to analyze the mysterious object and determine whether it resolves the long-standing mystery.
