On one of the last legs of a round-the-world flight, Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan set out from Lae, New Guinea, for tiny Howland Island. The Coast Guard cutter Itasca heard her radio calls but could never fix her position. The plane did not arrive.
Read it like a field journal. Each chapter logs evidence onto the board, and the plot twists stay redacted until you declassify them.
By July 1937 Earhart and Noonan had flown most of the way around the world in their Lockheed Electra. The flight from Lae to Howland was one of the longest and hardest legs, ending at a speck of land that had to be found by navigation alone.
The Coast Guard cutter Itasca waited off Howland to guide them in. Its radio operators heard Earhart's voice that morning, reporting that she was close and that fuel was running low.
Taking a reliable bearing on her signal proved impossible. One of her final messages reported a line of position, 157–337. Then she fell silent.
Earhart's “157–337” message told listeners which line she was flying along, but not where on that line she was. That missing piece is why the search area was so enormous.
The Coast Guard and the US Navy searched a vast area of ocean and islands through July 1937. Their reports and charts record where crews looked and the assumptions they worked from. They found no confirmed trace of the aircraft or its crew.
On 29 July 1937 Itasca's commander signed his report on the flight and the search.
Earhart was declared legally dead on 5 January 1939. That was a legal decision, not the discovery of a wreck.
The National Archives has since released thousands of pages of records, along with genuine period photographs of Earhart, Noonan and the Electra. The releases also contain later claims about their fate. Being in an official file does not make a claim true.
Among the archived files are later stories of capture and spying. The Archives released them as records, not as findings. None has been authenticated by the sources checked.
Earhart and Noonan take off from Lae for Howland Island.
Itasca hears Earhart report low fuel and the 157–337 line. Contact is lost.
The Coast Guard and Navy search the central Pacific.
Itasca's commander dates his report on the flight.
Earhart is declared legally dead.
Drag the photos around. Tap one to examine it. Then pick a theory: the threads show which evidence it rests on.
Itasca's radio logDocumentedExamined
Search reports and chartsDocumentedExamined
Period photographsDocumentedExamined
Later released filesUnverifiedExamined
Which explanation do you believe? Each is labelled by how well it's supported.
The record shows Earhart and Noonan reached the area near Howland, low on fuel and unable to find the island, and that an enormous search found nothing. It does not show where the Electra came down.
Near Howland Island in the central Pacific, on 2 July 1937, during the flight from Lae, New Guinea.
No authenticated recovery of the Electra has been established in the records reviewed for this file.
