US researchers launch new mission to solve mystery of Amelia Earhart’s fate

A new mission to locate Amelia Earhart’s long-missing plane is being launched, researchers announced on Wednesday, following fresh clues that suggest she may have crash-landed on a remote island in the South Pacific.

A satellite image may show part of Earhart’s Lockheed Electra 10E protruding from the sand on Nikumaroro, an isolated island in Kiribati about 1,000 miles from Fiji, according to Richard Pettigrew, head of the Archaeological Legacy Institute, a non-profit based in Oregon.

“What we have here is maybe the greatest opportunity ever to finally close the case,” Pettigrew said in a news release. “With such a great amount of very strong evidence, we feel we have no choice but to move forward and hopefully return with proof.”

Earhart and her navigator Fred Noonan vanished on 2 July 1937, exactly 88 years ago, during their attempt to circumnavigate the globe, leaving behind one of history’s most puzzling aviation mysteries.

Now, Purdue University, where Earhart once taught and which contributed funding for her flight, is organizing a team to travel to Nikumaroro this November. The group hopes to uncover and recover remains of the aircraft.

“We believe we owe it to Amelia and her legacy at Purdue to fulfill her wishes, if possible, to bring the Electra back to Purdue,” Steve Schultz, the university’s general counsel, told NBC News.

Pettigrew believes the object spotted in the satellite photo aligns in size and material with Earhart’s aircraft. He also noted its position is near her intended route and close to where four of her emergency radio transmissions are thought to have originated. The image was taken in 2015, a year after a powerful cyclone may have exposed the site by shifting sand, Pettigrew said. He later presented the findings to Purdue.

Additional signs suggesting Earhart’s presence on the island include American-made tools and a small medicine bottle, Pettigrew added.

Back in 2017, four specially trained dogs and archaeologists from the International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery (Tighar) also explored Nikumaroro.

Still, not everyone is convinced. Ric Gillespie, Tighar’s executive director, has led 12 previous expeditions to the island and believes Earhart probably landed and died there. However, he doubts the satellite image shows a plane. Instead, he told NBC he thinks the object could be a coconut palm tree and root ball pushed ashore during a storm.

Schultz said Earhart had intended to return the plane to Purdue after the journey so it could be studied by future aviation students. The Purdue Research Foundation has approved $500,000 in funding for the first phase of the trip.

The team will take six days to reach Nikumaroro by boat and will have five days on the island to search for the object and attempt to identify it as the missing plane.