Expedition sails to Nikumaroro to investigate possible Earhart aircraft

A 17-member group from Purdue University and the Archaeological Legacy Institute has departed Tarawa, Kiribati, for Nikumaroro to examine an underwater lagoon feature that researchers think may be tied to the Lockheed Electra 10-E Earhart vanished in. The voyage began on October 7 and was expected to take six days aboard the Marin Mainiku.¹³

Search at a remote atoll

The team is travelling about 830 nautical miles to Nikumaroro, an uninhabited coral-ringed atoll in Kiribati’s Phoenix Islands. Purdue said the vessel would average eight knots, while the expedition must also account for sea conditions and tide effects linked to El Niño. After leaving Tarawa’s lagoon, the vessel encountered heavy seas, Purdue reported.³

On arrival, the group plans to spend five days investigating the Taraia Object, a feature near the edge of Nikumaroro’s lagoon. Its equipment includes side-scan sonar, magnetometers, a hydro-probe and hydraulic dredging tools. The party is intended to be self-sufficient on the atoll, making its solar-power equipment central to the operation, according to Purdue.²³⁴

Richard Pettigrew, the head of the Archaeological Legacy Institute and expedition leader, said: “Finding Amelia Earhart’s Electra aircraft would be the discovery of a lifetime”. The team’s stated objective, however, is to establish the object’s identity; Pettigrew said his definition of success was correctly identifying the Taraia Object.¹⁴

An object under dispute

The feature was identified in satellite imagery in 2020 and has also been found in aerial photographs dating back to 1938, Purdue said. Purdue researchers say the form visible in the satellite photograph looks like a plane’s body and wings. Pettigrew has argued that Earhart’s aircraft could have floated through a narrow reef passage and come to rest near Taraia Point; the passage was created by the British in 1963.¹²⁴

The interpretation is contested. Ric Gillespie, co-founder of TIGHAR, has said the suspected feature is a fallen pandanus tree and predicted the expedition would not find aircraft wreckage or other significant remains. According to National Geographic, TIGHAR has either organised or participated in 14 Nikumaroro searches across 30 years. Gillespie also argues that any aircraft wreckage was swept out to sea and broken apart.²⁴

Previous searches have not resolved the question. A 2019 operation led by Robert Ballard did not locate the aircraft’s wreckage, while a plane-shaped sonar image found elsewhere on the sea floor was later identified as rocks, according to The Straits Times.²

The 1937 disappearance

Earhart and her navigator, Fred Noonan, disappeared in July 1937 during her attempt to fly around the world. Earhart had taken off from Papua New Guinea on July 2, heading toward Gardner, and reported low fuel before her final known transmission, according to The Straits Times. Purdue said the pair vanished en route to Howland Island after completing 22,000 miles of a planned 29,000-mile route.²³

The official United States view is that Earhart’s aircraft ran out of fuel and crashed near Howland Island, The Straits Times reported. A competing Nikumaroro hypothesis holds that Earhart and Noonan landed near the atoll and later died there as castaways. Locating the Taraia Object would not establish that explanation unless investigators could confirm it was the Electra and assess the evidence it contains.²⁴