Eighty-eight years after Amelia Earhart vanished over the Pacific, the Purdue Research Foundation (PRF) and the Archaeological Legacy Institute (ALI) announced a new effort to solve one of aviation’s greatest mysteries: the fate of Earhart’s Lockheed Electra 10E.
Set for November 2025, the “Taraia Object Expedition” aims to investigate whether an object spotted in satellite imagery off the remote Pacific island of Nikumaroro could be the Lockheed Electra 10E aircraft Earhart piloted. The object lies in a lagoon where evidence suggests the aircraft may have ended its journey after a forced landing.
“What we have here is maybe the greatest opportunity ever to finally close the case,” said Richard Pettigrew, ALI’s executive director, in a July 2 press 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. I look forward to collaborating with Purdue Research Foundation in writing the final chapter in Amelia Earhart’s remarkable life story.”
Evidence cited by ALI includes a photographic anomaly known as the Bevington Object, possible landing gear seen on a 1937 reef image; bone fragments found on the island in 1940 that forensic analysis links to Earhart; and 1930s-era artifacts including a woman’s shoe, cosmetic jar and medicine vial. Additionally, historic radio bearings from the U.S. Navy, Coast Guard and Pan Am triangulate to the island’s vicinity.
Purdue University’s connection to Earhart remains uniquely significant. She served as a visiting adviser and counselor to female students, while then-President Edward Elliott championed her mission. The Purdue Research Foundation funded her specially outfitted Electra through the Amelia Earhart Fund for Aeronautical Research. According to records, Earhart intended to donate the aircraft to Purdue for use in aeronautics research upon her return.
To support the effort, PRF has committed $500,000 toward the first phase of the expedition. Should the evidence warrant, a full recovery mission is planned for 2026.
An aircraft ending up in a watery graveyard is not one of aviation’s greatest mysteries - the oceans hold potentially tens of thousands of aircraft along with thousands of seafaring vessels - leaving scarce room for Spongebob, who is still clearing Bikini Bottom of wreckage as we speak.
I suggest giving the $500K (and no doubt much more to come) to the town of Harbour Grace Newfoundland to find the thiefs who took her statue from the airfield one night.
"The statue was an attraction and inspiration for children in the area, as well as tourists, says Mayor Don Coombs.
“She brought girls to a new level, that the sky is the limit.”
Seems a lot more inspiring to me than looking downward into a cold, dark graveyard to exhume proof of her death.
Another waste of valuable resources that will turn up another goose egg. Remind me of the millions spent trying to locate MH370, the lost city of Atlantis, the Loch Ness Monster, oh and my first E5-B?
The well known TIGHAR organization says the artifact in the photo is not a piece of an airplane, claims it looked in the lagoon.
TIGHAR’s research is covered in One More Good Flight: The Amelia Earhart Tragedy: Gillespie, Richard E: 9781682479384: Books - Amazon.ca which will be supplemented with a bit more analysis of items found on the island such as a unique piece of airplane fuselage.
If anyone has big money spend on sonar in deeper waters off of the reef than TIGHAR was able to afford looking in.
The book ‘One More Good Flight’ reveals how badly prepared she was for the flight, notably in radio communication knowledge.
She and navigator did not make contact with a ship near their destination - both botched communication, and a radio transmitter put on Howland Island failed to work.
TIGHAR’s well-documented theory is that the turned south toward a group of islands, crash landing on the reef of Gardner/Nikumaroro.
Otherwise the book explains why radio signals received after she disappeared point to that island, she and navigator probably transmitted while their airplane was still on the reef, before storms broke it up and washed it into deep water. It includes a photo that may be a landing gear leg on the reef.
It details artifacts consistent with presence of someone like Earhart, and pieces of aluminum used by later occupants (island was not inhabited at time of her disappearance).
Purdue’s list of evidence seems to be what TIGHAR already found, TIGHAR says it already looked in the lagoon.
Will it add anything, such as deep water sonar? That’s where money could be spent (off of the reef not in the lagoon).
Otherwise it is PR to promote Purdue U.
(At least they have the most likely island, in contrast to one supposed pilot who spent megabucks on sonar in the ocean elsewhere and claimed an image matched her airplane - but actually was a match to a single engine single tail swept wing airplane such as USN trained with in the region after WWII.)
Like that missing tooth filling that your tongue cannot resist probing, the Earhart mystery will command our attention until we’ve spend a fortune to “solve” it. The world is full of unanswered/unanswerable questions that will always fascinate those who are unfamiliar with William of Okkam and his shaving device.
I think that DB landed on a grassy knoll on the shores of an Scottish lake, myself.
At the risk of sounding cold hearted and un-feeling, why is money being spent on this? While it’s a piece of history, that is a fact. However, he cost of recovery, IF it’s THE plane, and the cost of restoration, will be massive. This money could be put to much better use at Purdue; like scholarships for aspiring pilots that cannot afford the cost of flight school. We need about 600,000 pilots in the next 20 years to cover part 91, 121, and 135 needs.
This is a valiant project, but the money could be put to better use
I agree with Aviatrexx… the Earhart saga is fascinating, but it’s unlikely to be solved. The Pacific doesn’t answer questions…
DB in Scotland? Interesting… good choice and lots of places to hide money.
If there were geese out there I’m thinking they were lost too.
And lets not forget the White Star Line Titanic, wherever she lies.
I’ve been interested in the story for decades. Amelia Earhart deserves to be found, so does Fred, and that Lockheed Electra 10E. It’s not just wreckage, it’s history that never got closure. Good luck to the team chasing it down.
Ending up nearly 400 NM south of Howland is a relatively large navigational error.
She failed horribly.
Poor planning, questionable piloting, and her failings not only killed herself but also killed another person.
It’s time to let this aviation circus stunt deadly failure go. It’s a bad look for women aviators and really only serves as an example of what not to do.
Let he who has never let hubris lead him down a dangerous primrose path, AJ …
… and yes, I was suggesting that DB made it to Scotland only to befall Nessie.
Amelia is a shining example of hubris leading to ones own destruction.
I guess I can thank her for demonstrating to me what not to do.
As a long time supporter of the Onion, I just remembered this news item that could be integral to the Purdue Research Foundation:
Your Welcome.
No one is thinking of making the wreckage into a working airplane, it would be easier to just start from the plans and make another one.
I have become very cynical about these “Find Amelia” missions. I can’t help but think these are really “Operation Fund A Free Trip To Go Diving In The South Pacific”. TIGHAR has really poisoned the well with their THIS TIME we finally found it that never ends.
Overall her flight, as was mentioned at the time by the Navy IIRC, was a “Poor plan, poorly executed”. Anyone with sailing or flying experience from the pre-GPS days knows better than to try and find an island looking into the rising sun. You may never see it until it is under you or behind you. Leaving off the correct radios to make up for this did not help.
She really was an early pioneer of the “Do stupid stunts for clicks on YouTube” reality TV lifestyle.
By restoration, I didn’t mean flyable, just showable
Sea water + bare alloy aluminum + Impact damage + 90-years in tropical seas/tides/storms = complete physical and corrosive destruction of all trace of that 1930s aircraft.
Nah, there would be some of it left including the engines. Not enough to make into anything that looks like an airplane, but not nothing. Insurance will have to write if off as a total loss.
Seriously, NO.
I’ve recovered/investigated 2 small jets from tropical waters [Panama, Honduras]… with modern corrosion protection… a few days after crashing… aluminum corrosion and steel rust was already evident… and currents were already stretching the debris field and affecting recovery diver performance.
I agree. After 88 years in warm saltwater, bare aluminum from Earhart’s Electra would be heavily corroded or gone. Impact, storms, and marine life worsen destruction. Recovery chances are extremely slim, only buried fragments or wedged parts may survive. The engines, being more durable, are the most likely components to endure.
Not to forget the aluminum eating crocodiles which probably wish to retain their foodsource. Had one of these show up during my seaplane commercial checkride and these things are scary!
??? Huhhh??? No ‘Salties’ near/around these remote/tiny Pacific atoll islands… but plenty of other marine predators.
BTW old engines were made from magnesium, aluminum and alloy steels… with a few other alloys. And even the prop blades and copper/steel wires and tires and acrylic windows are gone. Even the glass parts would be eroded to oblivion.
“The sea has never been friendly to man. At most it has been the accomplice of human restlessness.” --Joseph Conrad
Boy here is a bad case of penis envy if ever there was one. Gosh AJ, let’s take a look for a moment at her accomplishments:
That is just the flying accomplishments, excluding the organizations she started and led.
Do you have any first’s AJ? Break any records? Do something to promote aviation other then be a Debby Downer on females pilots?
You are certainly not the first man to get uncomfortable at the accomplishments of a woman pilot.
She died, like many other famous and not so famous pilots because the Swiss cheese model sadly lined up that day. Ever read “Fate Is The Hunter” because there is a long list of male pilots that died…trying to think if you have anything negative to say about them as well?
In regards to the search, people spend money on far stupider things so if Perdue wants to do this…have at it. If they find it then a great mystery solved as to location, and if they don’t, well I’ll go with the Star Trek version and they got picked up by aliens and transported to a planets far far away.
Clearly none of you are avid scuba divers. Airplanes do not dissolve into nothing quickly. I have been diving on planes that have been down for many years and still look like airplanes. Here is a WW II wreck that has been down almost a century and while it won’t be flying anytime soon, you can still tell what it is.
She was a circus act in an era of circus acts.
She (like many others at the time) used aviation to promote themselves.
Basically it was easy being “an aviation first” at a speed or a distance back in the late 20’s and 30’s; doubly easy if you were a woman.
No new records for me, all I have are 50+ years of safe accident free flying.
All I have is the satisfaction of knowing that I broke Earhart’s record in that regard.