Expedition hopes to find aviator Amelia Earhart's plane on remote island

What the report says

A research team led by the US-based Archaeological Legacy Institute and Purdue University is travelling to Nikumaroro, a remote island in Kiribati, to inspect a site they believe may contain wreckage from Amelia Earhart’s plane. According to BBC World News, the group departed Kiribati’s capital on Wednesday and expects to reach the atoll by Monday after an 830-mile sea journey. The expedition is focused on a feature known as the Taraia Object, seen in satellite imagery in 2020 and later matched to aerial photographs from 1938.

Earhart disappeared in 1937 while attempting to fly around the world with navigator Fred Noonan. The BBC notes that the long-running official explanation is that the Electra ran into communications and navigation problems and ultimately ran out of fuel near Howland Island, but no physical evidence has ever been recovered. Another possibility, discussed by some researchers, is that she may have reached Nikumaroro and ended up stranded there.

The current team says that finding the aircraft would be a major breakthrough in one of aviation’s best-known mysteries. However, the article also highlights skepticism from other specialists, including those who think the object may not be a plane at all. The effort follows previous unsuccessful searches, underscoring how difficult it remains to verify what happened to Earhart nearly nine decades ago.