In the days before hourly transcontinental flights, airplanes were exciting and romantic, piloted by legendary figures like Lucky Lindy and the Red Baron. While people everywhere were in awe of these adventurous icons, few women were found in their ranks until Amelia Earhart. As a pioneer of women’s aviation, Earhart met the milestones of famous ace pilots. Ever challenging herself, her final goal was to complete a flight around the world. It was this mission that eventually led to her mysterious and controversial disappearance over the Pacific Ocean.
Biography in Brief
Having not gained the right to vote until 1920, women were still considered fragile and less capable than men when aviation was growing. This fact makes Amelia Earhart’s accomplishments all the more impressive. She set her first record in 1922 by flying to 14,000 feet—higher than any female pilot had ever been. In 1928 she became the first woman to fly nonstop across the Atlantic Ocean, and in 1932 she became the first woman to cross the Atlantic on a solo flight. On January 11, 1935, she took off on the voyage that would be the first female solo flight across the Pacific.
These accomplishments were enough to gain her the reputation of an ace pilot and the fame that came with it. In 1931, she married the wealthy publisher George Putnam, whose promotional efforts made Earhart a highly publicized figure. A
U.S. Navy publication lists her many official honors: she received the Distinguished Flying Cross from Congress, the Cross of Knight of the Legion of Honor France, and the Gold Medal of the National Geographic Society from President Hoover. This fame and success encouraged her to undertake her most daring voyage yet.
The Quest for World Wide Flight
Earhart’s ultimate goal was to fly around the world. Her first attempt came in May of 1937. Traveling east from California, she made it as far as Hawaii before a crash landing damaged her plane. After the plane was repaired, Earhart restarted her mission, taking off from Miami, Florida. Following an approximately equatorial path, she flew from South America across the Atlantic and over Africa, the Middle East and Asia. Flying southeast to Australia then to New Guinea, the final leg of her voyage was intended to carry her over thousand of miles of Pacific Ocean.
Earhart and Noonan, her navigator, left Lae, New Guinea on July 1, 1937. They never reached their destination. At 2,600 miles, it was the longest leg of the trip over water and the fuel supply was a concern. The following day, a U.S. Navy ship picked up radio messages from Earhart reporting that her fuel tanks were empty, but no further radio contact could be made. These messages are speculated to be the last anyone heard from Amelia Earhart.
Can You Spot Amelia With Elvis?
While official sources maintain that the aircraft must have crashed into the Pacific, killing Earhart and Noonan, there are other theories pertaining to their disappearance. The FBI has released internal memos from the 1940s that claim Earhart was not killed in a plane crash, but was captured by the Japanese. One 1947 document notes that an American soldier being entertained by Japanese in a hotel in the Philippines "overheard a conversation in English between two Japanese to the effect that Amelia Earhart was still alive and was being detained at a hotel in Tokyo." This soldier also claims that during his stay in a WWII Japanese prison camp, an intelligence officer told him not to worry about Earhart’s well being because she was "perfectly all right."
It is also suggested by letters within FBI files that the motivation behind Earhart’s flight was to spy on Japanese forces in the Pacific. Some maintain that she and Noonan were executed after observing a strategic Japanese military site in the Pacific. Others claim that Earhart was captured by the Japanese and became "Tokyo Rose," an American radio personality forced to broadcast anti-American propaganda from Japan during WWII. Commenting on such allegations, J. Edgar Hoover wrote, "None of these has been found to have any foundation in fact."
The interest in Earhart’s disappearance is still alive today. An organization known as
TIGHAR (The International Group for Historical Aircraft Recovery) has been conducting research on the event. It is their hypothesis that Earhart could not locate her destination and was forced to land on Gardner Island due to low fuel supplies. Earhart and Noonan survived for a few days before dying of thirst, hunger, disease or food poisoning. The plane was eventually destroyed after being washed against a reef for weeks, and little remains. As of 2003, TIGHAR was conducting field work on and around Gardner Island in search of artifacts from the hypothesized crash but not found conclusive results.
Read More
TIGHAR's Website
Earhart's Official Website
The U.S. Navy's Earhart Fact Sheet
Amelia Earhart was the first famous female pilot.
