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The mystery of Amelia Earhart’s long-lost aircraft may finally be solved — as researchers believe searchers spent nearly nine decades looking in the wrong place.
A 17-member team from Purdue University and the Archaeological Legacy Institute (ALI) has launched a high-stakes expedition to Nikumaroro, a remote South Pacific atoll overrun by massive, three-foot land crabs.
The coconut crab is the largest crustacean that spends all its adult life on land, and has been spotted mounting attacks in the night and grabbing unsuspecting prey that pass too close to the crabs’ burrows.
Researchers suspect Earhart and her navigator Fred Noonan miscalculated their course on July 2, 1937, landing on Nikumaroro instead of Howland Island, 350 miles to the north, where they attempted to land.
The Purdue expedition arrived on the island’s western edge on Oct. 12 and the team is using a floating hydraulic dredge to clear underwater sediment and uncover the unidentified object.
The team is focusing on the “Taraia Object” – a submerged shape detected near the shoreline in satellite imagery that researchers think could be the remains of the Lockheed Electra 10E’s tail and fuselage.
ALI and Purdue report that the object was identified in satellite data in 2020, though historical photographs suggest it has rested in the lagoon since 1938. The team aims to confirm aluminum skin and rivet patterns to positively identify the plane.
The voyage marks the 20th organized search for Earhart’s plane, since she reported running low on fuel to the U.S. Coast Guard before radio contact was lost.
Previous attempts were misled by natural underwater rock formations, but researchers believe post-landing radio distress signals and artifacts found point directly to Nikumaroro.
Prior discoveries on the island include human bones found in 1940 – later analyzed in 2018 as consistent with a woman of Earhart’s build — along with 1930s-era remnants of a woman’s shoe and a freckle cream jar. Theory holds that the pair briefly survived as castaways before the aircraft was swept into deeper water.
The island’s native Coconut crabs, known for their powerful claws and bone-scavenging habits, have fueled grim speculation that the aviators’ remains were dispersed shortly after their deaths. To ensure safety, Purdue and ALI researchers sleep aboard their vessel each night.
If the team locates the Electra during this five-day operational window, they will map the site and return next year for full recovery. Purdue University is currently negotiating with the nation of Kiribati, which comprises 33 islands including Phoenix Islands, to bring the wreckage back to the United States.
Earhart served as a career counselor for women at Purdue and advisor to its Department of Aeronautics in 1935 prior to her historic attempt to circumnavigate the globe. Before this, she was the first person to fly a solo, nonstop flight across the United States (1932) and the first woman/second person to fly nonstop alone across the Atlantic.
