Today in History: Amelia Earhart Disappears

On this day (July 2) in 1937, Ameilia Earhart disappeared over the Pacific Ocean while attempting to circumnavigate the globe. Earhart was the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean and was an aviation celebrity and women’s rights activist. No one knows precisely what happened to Earhart. She was approaching Howland Island with scattered clouds in the sky. The clouds caused dark patches on the ocean surface which could make it difficult to see a small land mass. Her transmissions stated she could not find the island and was low on fuel. No one knows precisely what happened after that but there are three principle theories.

In the Crash and Sink theory, Earhart ran out of fuel, crashed in the ocean and died.

In the Gardner Island theory, Earhart did not waste fuel searching for Howland but instead turned south to Gardner Island. Several searches of Gardner Island were made in the years after the crash and a skeleton was found under a tree with an old fashioned sextant in 1940. A detailed examination of the skeleton was made and it was determined to be male, but in 1988, the report was reexamined and it was determined that the skeleton could have belonged to a tall female. (The skeleton was misplaced back in the 1940s so it cannot be re-examined.)

The final theory is that the Japanese captured and executed Earhart and her navigator after they shot them down near Saipan. There are witnesses who claimed to have seen the execution and the Japanese Mitsubishi A6M Zero fighter plane had electronic components which were similar to Earhart’s Lockheed Electra 10E which had been built to Earhart’s specifications.

Ultimately, short of finding Earhart’s Lockheed with two skeletons in it, we are probably never going to learn what happened to her.