Earhart Search Team Nears Pacific Atoll

A 17-member expedition backed by Purdue University is expected to arrive at Nikumaroro Island in the South Pacific on Tuesday to investigate a submerged object that researchers believe could be Amelia Earhart’s missing Lockheed Electra 10-E. The team departed Tarawa, Kiribati, last week aboard a research vessel and plans to spend five days examining the site.

The search centers on the so-called Taraia Object, an unusual shape identified in satellite imagery in 2020 that researchers say is also visible in aerial photographs dating back to 1938. The expedition follows a previous postponement due to permitting delays and weather concerns.

Earhart and navigator Fred Noonan disappeared in July 1937 while attempting to fly around the world. Their intended destination, Howland Island, lies approximately 400 miles northwest of Nikumaroro.

Search Targets Submerged Object

“Finding Amelia Earhart’s Electra aircraft would be the discovery of a lifetime,” expedition leader Richard Pettigrew said in remarks published by The Guardian. “Confirming the plane wreckage there would be the smoking-gun proof.”

According to a Purdue update, researchers plan to survey the island using drones before deploying sonar and magnetometers to examine the submerged object. The team will then use a hydraulic dredge to expose the object for identification. Any eventual recovery of aircraft wreckage would require additional authorization from the Kiribati government.

Researchers Disagree Over Evidence

“You can see the root ball,” Ric Gillespie, co-founder of The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery (TIGHAR), told Reuters. “You can see the branches. It’s a tree. People see what they want to see.”

Gillespie, who has conducted numerous searches at Nikumaroro, believes Earhart may have landed on the island but that her aircraft was subsequently washed into deeper water. No definitive wreckage from Earhart’s aircraft has been identified.