Researcher speaks out as search for Amelia Earhart, lost plane narrows

A team of researchers appears to be closer than ever in the search for Amelia Earhart’s plane and remains, a mystery that has captivated the world for decades.

Earhart and flight engineer Fred Noonan disappeared 89 years ago during an attempt to fly across the world.

Earhart and Noonan took off from Miami, Florida, in May 1937. On July 2, 1937, Earhart and Noonan were supposed to stop at Howland Island in the Pacific Ocean to refuel but encountered difficulties and transmitted messages saying, “Gas is running low. We are flying at 1,000 feet,” and “Wait.”

Now, researchers from Purdue University are searching in a remote island in the Pacific Ocean, called Nikumaroro Island, where they believe Earhart and Noonan’s plane is in a shallow lagoon.

“It could be within the next day or two that we are able to solve one of the biggest mysteries of the 20th century, that is, identifying the loss of electric aircraft,” Rick Pettigrew, executive director of the Archaeological Legacy Institute, told News.

Pettigrew previously told News the plane could be “in a very difficult spot to find.”

“We think that it’s underneath sediment, which is below the water of the lagoon,” Pettigrew said. “We think that that location was deeper at that moment. It was subsequently covered up by sediment, kind of like a shipwreck on the beach.”

In recent years, researchers looked into archives and used Apple Maps to hone in on the isolated atoll, about 230 miles away from the nearest inhabited land. They believe the image of the lost plane was only noticed in 2020 because Tropical Cyclone Pam had shifted the sand in 2015 and exposed it.

Purdue University and Archaeological Legacy Institute researchers set off from the island of Tarawa on Oct. 7 for the six-day voyage to Nikumaroro, and arrived there on Oct. 12.

Half of the team will traverse the jungle on foot and the other half of the team will sail around the island in their ongoing search. They will have to face challenges as they go, including the island’s coconut crabs, meat-eating crustaceans that can grow up to 3 feet tall, weigh nearly 10 pounds and have the jaw strength of a lion.