It was 75 years ago this week that aviatrix Amelia Earhart went missing, and on Tuesday yet another expedition launched with hopes of solving the mystery of her disappearance over the South Pacific. The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery departed from Hawaii aboard a research vessel bound for the remote atoll of Nikumaroro. They plan to search the nearby ocean using a remotely operated submersible, in hopes of finding wreckage from Earhart’s Lockheed Electra. “This is the high-tech deep-water search we’ve long wanted to do but could never afford,” says the TIGHAR website.
This is TIGHAR’s 10th expedition in search of definitive evidence of the fate of Earhart and her navigator, Fred Noonan. In previous expeditions, the group has found various artifacts that it says support the theory that Earhart survived an offshore ditching and sought refuge on the uninhabited atoll. Nikumaroro is about 1,800 miles from Hawaii, and 400 miles away from Howland Island, which was Earhart’s planned destination. The expedition is expected to return to Hawaii in about a month. The 75th anniversary of Earhart’s disappearance is also marked by a special exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C.
