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According to a news release, the Taraia Object Expedition will begin in November. The team is expected to travel to the island Nikumaroro in the Pacific Ocean to confirm whether the Taraia Object, a visual anomaly seen in satellite in the island’s lagoon, is the final resting place of Earhart’s plane. The island is located between Australia and Hawaii.
Earhart, who was the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean as a pilot, disappeared while seeking to become the first woman to fly around the world in 1937, according to the National Women’s History Museum.
“What we have here is maybe the greatest opportunity ever to finally close the case,” Richard Pettigrew, ALI’s executive director said in the release. “With such a great amount of very strong evidence, we feel we have no choice but to move forward and hopefully return with proof. I look forward to collaborating with Purdue Research Foundation in writing the final chapter in Amelia Earhart’s remarkable life story.”
The release said that Earhart worked at Purdue University as an advisor for the university’s aeronautical engineering department and as a counselor on careers for women. University officials at that time worked with Earhart to prepare an aircraft for her flight around the world.
“Today, as a team of experts try again to locate the plane, the Boilermaker spirit of exploration lives on,” Purdue President Mung Chiang said in the release.
While the plane has never been recovered, officials said that a “vast amount of circumstantial evidence” has supported the hypothesis surrounding the Taraia Object based on documentary records, photographs, satellite images, physical evidence and personal testimony.
“This idea posits that Earhart and her navigator, Fred Noonan, did not crash at sea but instead landed and were marooned on an uninhabited island and subsequently perished there,” the release said.
The expedition is planned to embark from Majuro in the Marshall Islands on Nov. 5 and then spend five days on Nikumaroro. The group will post project updates on the Heritage Broadcasting Services.
“Purdue Research Foundation began its commitment to Earhart’s aeronautical explorations in 1935,” PRF president and CEO Chad Pittman said in the release. “By embarking on this joint partnership with ALI, we hope to come full circle on our support of Earhart’s innovative spirit, solve one of history’s biggest mysteries, and inspire future generations of aviators, adventurers, innovators and Boilermakers.”
Officials said that if the initial expedition confirms the identity of the aircraft, the team plans to return for larger excavation efforts next year. For more information, click here.
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