Papua New Guinea, a remote island in the vast Pacific, so impenetrable is this jungle island that only the most adventurous travel there. This untamed land holds many secrets. It also holds the secret to the greatest aviation mystery of all time. In 1937, Amelia Earhart took off from Papua New Guinea and vanished without a trace.
Amelia Earhart was born on July 24th 1897. As a child Amelia was a natural leader. She was forever seeking out adventure. She was classified as a tomboy for her independent and adventurous nature. When she was 10 yes old, she saw her first plane. After graduating from college, Amelia had her first flying lesson on the 3rd of January, 1921. In six months she saved enough money to buy her own two seated plane and named it Canary because of its yellow color.
International Travel has never been easier. Thousands of aircrafts circle the globe guided to their destinations by satellite navigation systems. It might never occur to us that the pilots might get lost. But in the pioneering days of aviation, when Amelia Earhart was flying, getting lost was a occupational hazard. When she opened up the aircraft routes we fly today, she did so with little more than a compass to guide her.
In 1932, flying across the states was big news, especially when the pilot was a woman. Amelia Earhart’s daring and charm made her a media celebrity. People hungered for the remarkable details for this woman’s life. When she became the first women to fly across the Atlantic, New York City gave her a hero’s welcome. In an age where most people had never seen a airplane, flying across the ocean was going to the moon. In 1937, Amelia announced her most ambitious project, to fly around the world. The first two thirds of the flight were successful. A month after she left America, Amelia reached the pacific island of Papua New Guinea and California was only three days away, but she never made it. Her final takeoff of July 2nd 1937 was captured on film which was the last ever sighting of Amelia and her navigator. They took off then simply vanished.
Their destination was Howland Island, 2500 miles east, a tiny land in the vast Pacific Ocean. A ship called the ITASCA was positioned at Howland Island to help guide Amelia in by radio. But the ship lost contact with her 20 hours into the flight. With an estimated two hours of fuel still remaining, Amelia’s radio went dead. The ITASCA began to search the waters around Howland Island thinking Amelia might have crashed into the ocean, but it found no trace. Amelia Earhart and her navigator were declared missing and presumed dead. The greatest women pilot of all time had disappeared and history’s greatest aviation mystery had begun.
For over 60 years, Amelia’s fate has been shrouded in myth. According to one myth, Amelia has been spying for Roosevelt over Japanese islands in the pacific. Some claimed she had been taken captive by the Japanese and later beheaded. But the most enduring theories center in the Phoenix Islands. The claim is that Amelia did make it there but was somehow missed by the navy search. In one version, she lived with a fisherman on an island paradise but investigation has shown this to be a pure friction. In another version, she was alone castaway on one of the islands. But no castaway could have been survived there for long. The island is beautiful but deadly.
Over the last decade, six expeditions have been sent to the island in search for sighs of Amelia. The most compelling evidence that she was has been here are the reminisce of a woman’s leather shoe from the 1930’s of a type sometimes worn by the aviatorics. But the evidence doesn’t fit. The shoe was two sizes big and probably belonged to a later settler. A skeleton was also found near the water, but analysis of the bones proved inconclusive. Amelia’s body was never found. There is no evidence that Amelia made it to the Phoenix Islands. With apparently two hours of fuel remaining, she disappeared off the face of the earth.
Nauticos Corp, the Maryland based underwater exploration group, responsible for fining the Titanic attempted to find the remains of the plane that Amelia flew on her journey. Nauticos believed that the place was lost in the ocean and used sonar equipment to search the 650 sq miles area that may yet hold the answers to the Amelia mystery. The group lowered a sonar listening device behind their ship and collected sonar data. But the depth of the ocean made it difficult for the search and it was eventually called off. Although Amelia achieved much in aviation, her early death and the mystery surrounding her overshadowed the achievements of other female pioneers.
But, Amelia’s legend lives on. She remains the queen of the skies, a brave and beautiful woman who rewrote the record books inspiring a whole generation. Amelia Earhart died in a pioneering attempt to show the world the possibilities of flight. In the process, she helped to lay the basis for modern air travel, bringing the most remote and beautiful corers of our planet within our reach.
