Scientists 'finally discover' Amelia Earhart's lost plane solving mystery after 88 years
Earhart was a real-life adventurer up until her mysterious 1937 disappearance over the Pacific Ocean
The mystery of Amelia Earhart is one that almost everyone in modern times is aware of, but the secret whereabouts of where her plane crashed may have finally been solved decades later.
Known as the renowned female pilot who had as many adventures as Indiana Jones, Earhart last took to the skies 88 years ago.
She was the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic, and had so much potential to do even more things that would have been groundbreaking back in the day.
At the time of her disappearance, she and navigator Fred Noonan were attempting to fly around the world - something that had never been done before.
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However, disaster struck the pair, and nobody has been able to solve it since... but some experts think they know what happened.
What happened to Amelia Earhart?
Earhart was nothing short of an unconventional gender role breaker back in her time, becoming the 16th woman to gain her aviation license after becoming obsessed with flying when she was a young adult thanks to a 2,000-foot flight she took with a daredevil stunt man at a fair.
While she was first a nurse’s aide in a Canadian military hospital during World War I, then a social worker in 1925, little did she know that she would become a renowned pilot that would be known nearly 100 years after her passing.
The tragic end to Earhart has been speculated about since her disappearance, with many theories being created, yet none proven so far.
What we do know is what was the most likely thing to have occurred.
Earhart left to begin her journey on 1 June 1937 in her Lockheed 10-E Electra plane as she planned a 46,670km (29,000-mile) journey from California across Central and South America, Africa, Australia before crossing the Pacific Ocean.
But six weeks into her trip, she and Noonan took off from New Guinea towards Howland Island and attempted the 20-hour-flight.
Even though they were being aided by the US Coast Guard to locate the island in the Pacific Ocean, they couldn’t see it and were never seen again.
Many believe that Noonan didn’t account for crossing the International Date Line in his calculations, and when using his celestial navigation method, you would need to know the exact date and time to successfully navigate.
If the theory is correct, he would have led them 70 miles off the coast of Gardner Island, some 400 miles from their destination, where Earhart made desperate radio calls for help.
Sadly, this area is known for its giant crabs…
Amelia Earhart’s plane ‘discovered’
Researchers announced on 2 July that there was a fresh expedition launched to find Earhart’s plane, based on evidence of her crash may have been found.
A satellite photo showed what looked to be the same shape of Earhart’s plane peeking through the sand the island of Nikumaroro in Kiribati, nearly 1,000 miles from Fiji.
Purdue University, who funded Earhart's fateful flight, said it will now send a team to Nikumaroro in November after the 2015 image showed the aftermath of an intense tropical cyclone which had shifted the sand.
“We believe we owe it to Amelia and her legacy at Purdue to fulfill her wishes, if possible, to bring the Electra back to Purdue,” Steve Schultz, Purdue’s general counsel, told NBC News.
Richard Pettigrew, executive director of the Archaeological Legacy Institute in Oregon, said the size and composition of the object matches Earhart’s plane, and the location is along her planned flight path and almost exactly where four of her radio calls for help seem to originate.
The archaeologist shared that the finding of American-made tools and a medicine vial, suggests Earhart may have been on the island.
Pettigrew told the Daily Mail: “What we have here is maybe the greatest opportunity ever to finally close the case.
“With such a great amount of very strong evidence, we feel we have no choice but to move forward and hopefully return with proof.”
In 2017, four forensic dogs trained to detect human remains and a team of archaeologists with the International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery (TIGHAR) visited the island, according to National Geographic.
But TIGHAR executive director Ric Gillespie believes the image simply shows a washed-up coconut tree and root ball.
Was Amelia Earhart eaten by crabs?
You’re probably wondering where on Earth anyone got the idea that she was eaten by coconut crabs, but there’s a lot of theories about it.
National Geographic reported on a theory that what may have happened after the doomed crash was that Noonan died, the Electra floated away, and Earhart lived alone on the island for weeks.
Well, she wasn’t alone… because she was kept company by the indigenous, three-foot-long coconut crabs who then ate her after she passed away.
In 1940, British settlers found 13 bones, and a skull, on the island, and they believe it could have been Earhart.
However, doctors examined the bones and they were male, although some anthropologists disagree.
As for what happened to the rest of the bones, ‘coconut crabs had scattered many bones,’ said the National Geographic report.
National Geographic archaeologist Fredrik Hiebert and his team might have discovered fragments of the skull from 1940 in the Te Umwanibong Museum and Cultural Centre in Tarawa, Kiribati which have been confirmed as having belonged to an adult woman.
Could this be Earhart?
Britt Jones