Particle.news
Download on the App Store
3 ARTICLES
·
15h ago

Earhart Search Team Sets November Departure for Nikumaroro 'Taraia Object' Probe

The ALI-led mission will test imagery-based clues in the island’s lagoon to seek verifiable aircraft remnants.

A crowd cheers for Amelia Earhart as she boards her single-engine Lockheed Vega airplane in Londonderry, Northern Ireland, for the trip back to London on May 22, 1932. Earhart landed in Londonderry on May 21 after becoming the first woman to fly solo nonstop across the Atlantic Ocean when she finished her 2,026 mile journey in under 15 hours after departing from Newfoundland. (AP Photo)
Image

Overview

  • A 15-person crew led by the Archaeological Legacy Institute plans to stage in Majuro and sail 1,200 nautical miles to Nikumaroro on November 4.
  • The focus is a straight, reflective feature dubbed the Taraia Object that organizers hypothesize could be wreckage from Earhart’s Lockheed Electra.
  • Fieldwork will combine magnetometer and sonar surveys, high-resolution mapping, a walk-over search on land, and targeted underwater excavation using a hydraulic dredge.
  • Purdue is sending three representatives, and the team studied a 1930s Electra at Seattle’s Museum of Flight to hone identification of small components.
  • Team leader Richard Pettigrew has expressed strong confidence in the lead, though others caution that past sonar hits proved natural rock and that confirmation will require on-site evidence; successful identification could open a path to eventual repatriation to West Lafayette.