Hello everyone and welcome, once again, to my column! This is my third year of authoring this column, and I have been able to do so thanks to all the people who are kind enough to check it out every week. I am grateful for every one of you who decides to check out what I’m up to. Now that we’re back in the swing of the school year, it’s time to explore some more events that are terribly mysterious, awfully odd, and just plain strange. This week, it’s time to explore the disappearance of one of the most famed female aviators of all time.
Amelia Earhart was born in 1897 in Kansas and quickly became infatuated with everything the outdoors had to offer. She would frequently be found traipsing around outdoors, exploring the woods, investigating puddles, and scaling trees. Her family, especially her parents and grandparents, were not too fond of her interests, but she pursued them nonetheless. Earhart’s first encounter with a plane at the age of 11 was, as she put it, uninteresting. Her passion was not ignited until she saw the plane in motion, performing stunts and tricks in the air nearly a decade later.
Earhart was a loner throughout high school, but she loved and excelled in anything related to science. She experienced a few turbulent years of schooling after her graduation, but she eventually settled with her parents in California, where she discovered her passion for flying. She quickly excelled and became nationally recognized for her skills. In 1936, she set herself the ultimate goal of circumnavigating the entire globe.
Purdue University financed a plane for her to use in this mission, and in her “flying laboratory” she took off with navigator Fred Noonan to complete her journey. On March 17, 1937, Earhart, Noonan, a stunt pilot named Paul Mantz and a captain named Harry Manning took off from Oakland, California and touched down in Honolulu, Hawaii. They attempted to continue their journey soon after, but adverse weather conditions prevented them from doing so. This first attempt is ultimately botched, and she is forced to restart.
Her second journey began from Miami, Florida, this time with only Noonan as her companion. She manages to fly nearly 22,000 miles, stopping in significant locations like Africa, India, and South America. Nearing the end of their journey, they took flight from Lae, New Guinea with the intention of docking on Howland Island in the Pacific. This island is very small, and the pair is unable to locate the island, eventually losing radio contact. They had officially vanished from the map.
President Roosevelt and Earhart’s husband George Putnam engage in their own searches for the missing aviator, but they are unable to locate her. The government’s search ended up totalling $4 million and was called off after only a few months, and although Putnam continued his search, he too gave up. Once the news of the disappearance breached the public, there was a flood of reports with supposed radio noises, plane pieces, or photographs claiming to be associated with Earhart’s disappearance.
The volume of theories surrounding what happened to Earhart is vast, but there are some ideas that have some credibility and prominence. The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery, also known as TIGHAR, has made efforts to investigate the final whereabouts of Amelia Earhart. Richard Gillespie is a member of said organization and has attended missions to Gardner Island, now Nikumaroro, and helped to uncover potential artifacts from Earhart and Noonan’s equipment. A shoe heel and a piece of glass are among some of the items that were recovered from the island, but none were conclusively connected to the aviation pair.
Another common theory is likely the most plausible explanation: the two crash landed. According to Earhart’s reports to the U.S. Coast Guard via radio, she seemed slightly panicked. She was attempting to locate a Coast Guard sea vessel known as Itasca since it was meant to provide signals and information to the plane. The possibility of bad weather would lead the two to exhaust their fuel supply and eventually fall into the ocean.
The discourse surrounding Earhart’s disappearance is still ongoing, especially since it will likely never be solved for certain. She became an American legend, and her disappearance quite possibly outweighed her significance as a feminist icon and women’s rights advocate. The theories of coconut crabs, UFOs, and government cover ups have all pervaded the scene when it comes to theorizing. The definite fate of Amelia Earhart might never be known for certain, but the work she did will always persist as a great leap forward for women in aviation.
Resources:
https://www.womenshistory.org/education-resources/biographies/amelia-earhart
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/earhart-timeline/
https://airandspace.si.edu/stories/editorial/legend-amelia-earharts-disappearance