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Amelia Earhart disappears
A flight around the world ends over the Pacific
Amelia Earhart and navigator Fred Noonan vanished while trying to reach Howland Island. Searches found no trace, and several theories exist.
Earhart and Noonan left Lae, New Guinea, in a twin-engine Lockheed Electra on July 2, 1937, bound for tiny Howland Island, a long open-ocean leg late in their attempt to circle the globe near the equator. The US Coast Guard cutter Itasca waited near Howland to give radio help.
Radio contact was poor. The Itasca heard Earhart's voice but she apparently could not hear its replies well, and her last messages said she was running low on fuel and could not see the island. Navigating to a very small island with the equipment of the day was difficult, and a small error could leave a plane with no landfall.
A major US Navy and Coast Guard search found nothing, and Earhart was later declared legally dead. The leading explanation is that the plane ran out of fuel and crashed into the sea. Other proposals include a landing on Nikumaroro (formerly Gardner Island), argued by the group TIGHAR, and capture by Japanese forces, which has never been backed by solid evidence.
Because no aircraft wreckage or remains have been confirmed, every account of her fate remains a hypothesis. The National Archives holds government records on the disappearance.