Purdue team closes in on Amelia Earhart mystery

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Decades-long searches for a famed American aviator who went missing nearly a century ago may be getting a little warmer.

On Monday, a 17-person expedition from Purdue University arrived at Nikumaroro Island in the South Pacific to investigate the Taraia Object — satellite imagery “anomaly” believed to be the wreckage of Amelia Earhart’s aircraft.

Nikumaroro Island, formerly known as Gardner Island, is located within the Republic of Kiribati.

It is a remote and uninhabited coral atoll about 1,700 km northeast of Fiji and 3,400 km southwest of Honolulu.

The anomaly is located in a lagoon on the northwestern quadrant of the paramecium-shaped, 7.5 km-long island, and on Google Maps appears to be a shadow of a submerged object just off the shore.

The island is central to the “Nikumaroro Hypothesis” — a prominent theory on the disappearance suggesting Earhart and navigator Fred Noonan either landed or crashed their Lockheed Electra on the atoll on July 2, 1937, after overshooting Howland Island about 650 km. to the northwest.

Earhart was 39 years old when she vanished.

Team closing in on mystery object

The Purdue University team arrived at the island Monday after a five-day voyage across the Pacific.

Expedition leader Rick Pettigrew said his team is eager to get going.

“It is incredibly rewarding to be this close to completing our inspection of the Taraia Object and potentially solving, at long last, the outstanding mystery of the disappearance of Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan more than 89 years ago,” Pettigrew said in a statement.

Purdue University shares a historical connection to Earhart, who worked at the school in the 1930s.

The Purdue Research Foundation also helped purchase the Lockheed Electra used on her final flight.

Pettigrew and his team are the first authorized expedition to set foot on the island in seven years.

The team will search the area for any debris or artifacts near the anomaly, as well as use metal detection equipment and sonar to search for the aircraft’s wiring and other hardware, as the Electra’s non-ferrous aluminum body cannot be detected using standard equipment.

Crews will also remove sand from the floor of the lagoon to discover what’s underneath the anomaly.

“Despite the inevitable challenges of carrying off an endeavor of this magnitude, and the difficulties of sailing across the vast Pacific in a working vessel to reach a place as remote as this one, our team is in excellent spirits,” Pettigrew said.

“We continue to be well taken care of by our very capable Kiribati crew, and we are looking forward to the work ahead.”

bpassifiume@postmedia.com
X: @bryanpassifiume

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