Nikumaroro search puts disputed Earhart aircraft lead to the test
A Purdue University and Archaeological Legacy Institute expedition plans to examine a lagoon feature in Kiribati, though researchers disagree over whether it is wreckage.
A 17-member team from Purdue University and the Archaeological Legacy Institute is heading to Nikumaroro, Kiribati, to investigate a lagoon feature that may be Amelia Earhart’s missing aircraft. The feature has not been identified as wreckage, and its interpretation is disputed.
Expedition leader Rick Pettigrew says satellite images taken after a 2015 cyclone show an object that could match the size and appearance of the Lockheed Electra. The team plans to use drone photography, magnetometers and sonar. A hydraulic dredge may be used if initial findings support excavation.
Ric Gillespie, director of the International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery, says the feature looks like an uprooted pandanus tree. He also says TIGHAR teams searched the location in 2001 and 2007 with metal detectors but found no aircraft evidence.
Nikumaroro has long been proposed as a possible landing or castaway site. Researchers have reported artefacts there, but none has been conclusively linked to Earhart’s flight.
Earhart and navigator Fred Noonan disappeared on 2 July 1937 while flying from New Guinea towards Howland Island. Smithsonian aviation curator Dorothy Cochrane considers it unlikely they reached Nikumaroro and believes the aircraft may lie near Howland. Its fate remains unknown.
