New Expedition Seeks to Locate Amelia Earhart’s Lost Aircraft

Purdue University, where the legendary aviator served as a faculty member, is funding the project.

Ryan Ewing

Thursday, July 03, 2025 at 09:27 AM ET

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Edited By:

Travis Tingle

Amelia Earhart in the cockpit of her Lockheed Electra 10-E. [Courtesy: Purdue University Libraries]

Key Takeaways:

A new expedition will launch in November to investigate a "visual anomaly" in satellite imagery near Nikumaroro island, believed to be the wreckage of Amelia Earhart's lost Lockheed 10-E Electra.
Researchers consider this the most promising lead yet, citing the object's match to the plane's size and composition, its location aligning with Earhart's flight path and distress calls, and previous finds of related artifacts on the island.
The expedition, involving the Purdue Research Foundation (Earhart was a Purdue faculty member), aims to confirm the find and potentially recover the aircraft, hoping to solve the 88-year-old aviation mystery.

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A new expedition will head to a remote Pacific island in November in what researchers call their most promising effort yet to solve one of aviation’s greatest mysteries—the disappearance of pilot Amelia Earhart and navigator Fred Noonan.

The Purdue Research Foundation and Archaeological Legacy Institute announced Wednesday it will investigate a “visual anomaly” spotted in satellite imagery of a lagoon at Nikumaroro, a tiny island between Hawaii and Australia. The object, dubbed the Taraia Object, matches the size and apparent composition of Earhart’s Lockheed 10-E Electra that vanished 88 years ago.