by Research hope to find evidence that provides one of the most ongoing secrets of modern history: What happened to the legendary pilot Amelia Earhart?
On Wednesday, Purdue University researchers announced a new expedition that hopes to find some material evidence of Earhart’s aircraft.
With satellite images, the researchers have identified a place on the tiny, remote island of Nikumaroro in Kirabati, which they believe that according to NBC News, they could be the final resting place of Earhart’s aircraft.
The expedition was announced on July 2, exactly 88 years after Earhart and Navigator Fred Noonan disappeared during their famous attempt to circle the world on their plane.
Earhart worked for Purdue University, and the institute helped finance its historical, albeit tragic final flight. Purdue said it is planning to send a team in November to examine the website and hopefully find information about your Lockheed Electra 10e aircraft.
“We believe that we owe it to Amelia and her legacy at Purdue to fulfill your wishes if possible to bring the Elektra back to Purdue,” said Steve Schultz, General Counsel of Purdue.
The satellite photo, which drove the new expedition, was recorded in 2015, just a year after a strong tropical cyclone had postponed the sand on the island and the plane may reveal, said Richard Pettigrew, the managing director of the non -profit archaeological legacy institute in Oregon.
Pettigrew brought the satellite images to Purdue, which kicked the upcoming expedition.
According to Pettigrew, the size and composition of the object corresponds to parts of the aircraft from Earhart, and the location of the island is close to the planned flight path from Earhart and almost exactly where four of its last radio claims come to help.
“It fulfills all the criteria,” he said. “Everything fits.”
After a decade, Earhart’s disappearance was a tragic finale after a decade newspaper and radio stories in which they documented their record flights.
On June 17, 1928, at the age of 30, she was the first woman to put an airplane – a bright red Lockheed Vega 5b, which she called “Old Bessie, The Fire Steed” over the Atlantic. The endeavor made headlines across the country.
Later she was the first person to take a solo flight over the Pacific and traveled from California to the Hawaiian islands from California in 1934.
Earhart was originally treated as a lack of aircraft due to its gender; At the time, they called news reports the first “girl” to fly over the Atlantic, and another described them as “aviatrix”.
But when they further prove their skills in the cockpit, she achieved a great pilot and known as a strange outlier. Nevertheless, it used her growing importance to push for equality in heaven. In an interview with the evening star in 1929, Earhart asked the public to “give women an opportunity in the air”.
“As in any other sport, women can qualify in the air. Your influence and your consent are of crucial importance for the success of commercial aviation,” she said at the time. “Women and girls write to me with the thousands to learn the truth about the aviation and the chances of women. There is nothing in the make-up of women that would make them inferior to a man as an air pilot. The only barrier for their quick success is their lack of opportunity to get adequate training.”
After numerous successful and record flights in the late 20s and early 1930s, Earhart put a new goal in its sights on: the first woman to circle the planet on a plane.
After her disappearance, the public remained a bit hopeful that it would fly another day again. But after a two -month search that gave up no trace of her or at noon, the couple were suspected as dead.
Pettigrew has been trying to find the remains of Earhart’s flight for years. He visited Nikumaroro and said that a contemporary medical and American tool was found on the island, which suggested that someone from the west-vie lights had been on the island in a way in the way of disappearance.
Accordingly National GeographicFour forensic dogs and a team of archaeologists from the international group for historical aircraft regeneration traveled to the island in 2017. During this trip, the dogs reported that the smell of human remains found, although none were actually found. Nobody lives on Nikumaroro, and there is sparse evidence that there is ever a continuous settlement on the island.
Two years later, the famous Ocean Explorer Robert Ballard led an expedition to find or prove the aircraft from Earhart that he had ended up on the island. After days when both the cliffs of the island and the surrounding water were sought, Ballard found no evidence of a wreck on the island.
“We had the feeling that if your plane was there, we would have found it in the expedition very early,” said Allison Fundis, Chief Operating Officer of the Expedition Ballard The New York Times.
Richard Gillespie, the executive director of the international group for historical aircraft, said that he doubt that the Purdue expedition would provide all the evidence of Earhart’s aircraft on its upcoming expedition.
“We looked there at this place and there is nothing,” he said to NBC News.
Gillespie has launched a dozen expeditions over the past 35 years to search for Earhart, including the search for Nikumaroro. He said that the satellite image that leads the Purdue expedition shows a fallen coconut palm with a root ball that was washed up by a storm.
“I understand the desire to find a piece of Amelia Earhart’s plane. God knows that we tried it,” he said. “But the data, the facts, do not support the hypothesis. It’s so easy.”
Despite its skepticism, Purdue will still carry out the expedition. According to Shultz, the Purdue Research Foundation has extended a credit line of $ 500,000 to the first phase of the expedition.
The expedition members will leave in November and travel for six days to reach Nikumaroro. From there you have five days on the island to examine the property from the satellite images and determine whether it is evidence of the missing aircraft from Earhart or not.
“If we hopefully solve the secret and confirm that it is so, further efforts will be made to bring it back to a permanent home,” said Schultz.
