HOWLAND ISLAND — 1937 · Missing Person
The Disappearance of Amelia Earhart
Amelia Earhart, the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic, took off from Lae, New Guinea, on 2 July 1937 with navigator Fred Noonan in a Lockheed Electra 10E, on one of the last legs of an attempted round-the-world flight. Their target was tiny Howland Island in the central Pacific. The US Coast Guard cutter Itasca, waiting off the island, received messages from Earhart saying they were lost and running low on fuel; then contact ended. One of the largest air and sea searches of its time found nothing. The official view is that the plane ran out of fuel and went down in the ocean; another hypothesis holds that the pair landed on Nikumaroro Island to the southwest.
- Date
- 1937
- Place
- Central Pacific Ocean (US territory), Howland Island, US
- Category
- Missing Person
- Case Status
- Unsolved
- Coordinates
- 0.8067, -176.6167 ↗
Timeline of Events
- May 1937Earhart and Noonan set off eastward from Miami on their world flight.
- 2 July 1937They took off from Lae for Howland Island.
- 2 July 1937Their last radio messages reached the Itasca before contact was lost.
- 19 July 1937The US Navy and Coast Guard search ended without result.
- 5 January 1939Earhart was declared legally dead.
Sources
- Smithsonian NASM — Answering Your Questions About Earhart's Disappearance airandspace.si.edu ↗
- National Archives — Records Relating to Amelia Earhart archives.gov ↗
- History.com — Amelia Earhart disappears history.com ↗
- Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum
- National Archives
- History.com
Source grade A: several independent sources, at least one an official record or reference work. If you spot a mistake or something missing, report it with "Suggest a correction" in the app.
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🕯️ This record was prepared with respect, in memory of those who lost their lives.