Amelia Earhart’s final flight is probably one of the longest enduring mysteries in the history of modern aviation.
Earhart was a flight pioneer who not only set aviation records, but also proved that women could fly in an era where they had only recenly won the right to vote in the United States. To this day, no one knows exactly what happened to Earhart and her navigator Fred Noonan after they vanished somewhere over the South Pacific.
Earhart and Noonan disappeared on July 2, 1937 while in route from New Guinea to Howland Island. Searches were conducted in 1937 with no trace of the aircraft or crew ever discovered.
This year marks the 75th anniversary of the ill-fated flight and an investigation is set to kick off with renewed hopes of discovering the final resting place of Earhart’s Lockheed Electra aircraft.
This time around, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is offering her support as The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery leads the new initiative.
Specifically, investigators will be studying a remote island called Nikumaroro that is now part of the tiny Pacific nation of Kiribati. Indeed, some believe Earhart and Noonan may have landed the aircraft on the small island once known as Gartner Island.
Other historians still believe that the aircraft crashed into the ocean, where it sank never to be seen again.
However, one US official notes that a recent analysis of a contemporary photo appears to show a section of the island with what some believe could be a strut and wheel from the aircraft sticking out of the water.
Debate on the legitimacy of contemporary photos aside, we all realize that Trekkies know what happened to Earhart. The famous female pilot turned up on episode titled The 37’s in suspended animation in some alternate reality. I would love for this mystery to finally be resolved so we know what happened to Earhart, Noonan, and the aircraft.
