Earhart Vanishes: Lost Over the Pacific
Amelia Earhart and navigator Fred Noonan were attempting to land on Howland Island, a speck of coral barely two miles long in the central Pacific, when their Lockheed Electra vanished on July 2, 1937. Radio logs from the Coast Guard cutter Itasca show Earhart transmitted bearing requests that the ship could hear but couldn't respond to, because their radio frequencies didn't match. She circled overhead as fuel ran low, unable to see the flat island through thick cloud cover. The Navy launched the most expensive air and sea search in American history to that point, covering 250,000 square miles over sixteen days. Neither the plane nor the crew was ever found, creating aviation's most enduring mystery.
July 2, 1937
89 years ago
Key Figures & Places
What Else Happened on July 2
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