A satellite image shows the Taraia Object in a lagoon on Nikumaroro Island. Photo from Rick Pettigrew, Archeological Legacy Institute.

News Release

WEST LAFAYETTE — A Purdue University team is preparing to join an international expedition next month that could solve one of aviation’s greatest mysteries, the 1937 disappearance of Amelia Earhart and her navigator, Fred Noonan.

Fewer than 30 days from now, researchers from Purdue and the Purdue Research Foundation will travel to Nikumaroro Island in the Republic of Kiribati to investigate a possible underwater aircraft site known as the Taraia Object.

Purdue University and Archaeological Legacy Institute members of the Amelia Earhart expedition team. In the front row are, from left, Richard Pettigrew and Sirisha Bandla, field assistant and Purdue alumna. In the second row are Ren LaRocca, Aaron Arrants, Michael Krivor, Helmut Schleppi, Steve Schultz, Tom Reitter and Ella Van Cleave. Photo by Purdue University, Becky Robiños.

The anomaly, first detected in 2020 satellite imagery, may be the wreckage of Earhart’s Lockheed Electra 10E, the plane she flew while attempting to circumnavigate the globe.

If the object proves to be Earhart’s plane, legal ownership would fall under the jurisdiction of Kiribati, which controls the island and surrounding waters. Purdue officials say they hope to work with the island nation to eventually bring portions of the Electra to the university for display, fulfilling Earhart’s stated intent to return the aircraft to Purdue after her world flight.

Amelia Earhart. Photo from Purdue University.

The 15-member crew will assemble Tuesday, Nov. 4 in the Marshall Islands before sailing 1,200 nautical miles to Nikumaroro. The mission will begin with video and sonar imaging, followed by remote sensing and underwater excavation. The group plans to return around Friday, Nov. 21.

The search builds on decades of research supporting the “Nikumaroro hypothesis,” which suggests Earhart and Noonan landed on the island and later perished there. Supporting evidence includes artifacts such as a 1930s-era woman’s shoe and compact, bone fragments, and radio signals recorded at the time of the disappearance.

Purdue helped fund Earhart’s Electra as a “flying laboratory” for her record-setting research before it vanished 88 years ago.