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Researchers Looking for Amelia Earhart’s Remains Arrive at Carnivorous Island

The team has narrowed the nearly century-long search using satellite images that may show the pilot’s lost plane.

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A team of Purdue University researchers looking for the remains of Amelia Earhart, her flight navigator, and their plane landed on the remote Pacific island of Nikumaroro on Monday. Earhart and navigator Fred Noonan disappeared 89 years ago while trying to fly across the world. The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery has investigated the island since 1988, with a dozen expeditions ultimately giving up on finding the plane. But satellite images from 2020 revealed what the Purdue team believes is the missing aircraft, dubbed the “Taraia Object,” in a shallow lagoon. Researchers determined the object became visible in 2015, likely after Tropical Cyclone Pam hit the island. “It’s in a very difficult spot to find. We think that location was deeper at that moment. It was subsequently covered up by sediment, kind of like a shipwreck on the beach,” executive director of the Archaeological Legacy Institute Rick Pettigrew told ABC News. After a six-day voyage to the island, half of Pettigrew’s team will trek through the jungle on foot, while the others will search by boat—230 miles from the nearest inhabited land. On the island, the researchers will encounter coconut crabs, which are giant, meat-eating crustaceans that can grow up to three feet long.