National Geographic History - July 2019

Fateful Final Flight

Earhart’s achievements in aviation had

already made her an international house-

hold name when, in 1937, she set out to

become the first woman to fly around the

world, a grueling 29,000-mile eastbound

journey that roughly followed the Equator.

A failed attempt in March damaged her

plane, but after repairs, she and her nav-

igator, Fred Noonan, departed from Oak-

land, California, on May 21.

After 22,000 miles, 40 days, and more

than 20 stops, they arrived in Lae, on the

eastern coast of Papua New Guinea. On

the morning of July 2, Earhart and Noonan

began what was expected to be the hard-

est leg of their trip: to Howland Island,

a 1.5-mile-long coral atoll in the central

Pacific Ocean. More than 2,500 miles of

ocean stretched between Lae and the re-

mote spit of land that was

their next stop to refuel.

O

n July 2, 1937, Amelia Ear-

hart flew toward Howland

Island, one of the last stops

on her attempt to circum-

navigate the globe. Nearing

the tiny Pacific atoll, she radioed the Itas-

ca, a United States Coast Guard cutter

anchored off Howland’s coast, to ask it

to guide her onto land with radio signals.

“KHAQQ (the Lockheed Electra 10E’s

call sign) calling Itasca: We must be on

you but cannot see you ... gas is running

low ... been unable to reach you by radio

... we are flying at 1,000 feet.”

Earhart’s last confirmed message in-

dicated that she was flying on a north-

west-to-southeast navigational line that

bisected the island, but she did not indi-

cate in which direction she was heading.

After that communication at 8:43 a.m.,

radio contact was lost, and no one knows

what happened next.

The Mystery

of Amelia Earhart’s

Last Flight

The aviator was nearing the end of her round-the-world

flight when her plane vanished over the Pacific in July 1937.

More than eight decades later, the mystery of her

disappearance—and the quest to solve it—still survive.

RECORD-BREAKER

DMTRI KESSEL /LIFE/GETTY IMAGES

FLYING CROSS GRANTED TO AMELIA EARHART BY THE U.S. CONGRESS

ENIGMAS

AS WELL AS being the first woman to complete record-breaking

solo flights, Earhart was also the first woman to receive the

Distinguished Flying Cross, awarded to her in 1932 for “heroism or

extraordinary achievement while participating in an aerial flight.”

A co-founder of the all-female aviators’ club the Ninety-Nines,

Earhart strove to open up aviation to as many women as possible.