On May 20, 1932, 34-year-old Amelia Earhart took off alone from Harbor Grace, Newfoundland with the idea of repeating Charles Lindbergh's transatlantic flight. After 14 hours and 56 minutes, she landed in a pasture in Culmore, Northern Ireland. Today, the Amelia Earhart Center is located there.
As the first woman to fly across the Atlantic alone, Earhart received the Distinguished Flying Cross from the US Congress, the Legion of Honor, from the government of France and a gold medal from the National Geographic Society from President Herbert Hoover, recalls Dani Ivanov in his blog.
First attempts at aviation
In December 1920, Earhart boarded a plane for the first time. “I just knew I had to fly“ she said of the ten-minute flight. Determined to fly, she took up truck driving and working for a telephone company to save the thousand dollars needed for flying lessons. In January 1921, she began training with Anita Snook, one of the first female pilots. Six months later, she bought her first plane — “Kinner Airster“ — which she called “The Canary“. On October 22, 1922, Earhart flew the Canary to 14,000 feet, a world record for female pilots. On May 15, 1923, she became the sixteenth woman in the world to receive a pilot's license from the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale.
By 1927, Earhart had logged nearly 500 hours of solo flying without serious incident and moved back to the East Coast. After several ill-advised investments, her grandmother's inheritance, the main source of income for her family, ran out. Earhart was forced to abandon her studies at Columbia for the second time and find work. She became a teacher and later a social worker in Medford, Massachusetts.
Despite the difficult times, Earhart continued to be involved in aviation. She became a member and later vice president of the Boston branch of the Aeronautical Society of America. She also worked as a sales representative for Keener, an aircraft manufacturer, and wrote newspaper columns on flying.
Childhood and early years
Amelia Earhart was born in Atchison, Kansas to Samuel Stanton Earhart and Amelia Otis Earhart - both Jewish. She and her younger sister Grace Muriel, or Pidge, received an unusual upbringing, as their mother did not approve of modeling her daughters as "obedient little girls". As children, Amelia and Pidge engaged in games that were not typical for girls, such as shooting rats with a rifle and climbing trees. In 1904, out of a desire to have a roller coaster at home, Amelia attached steep rails to the roof of her house and descended them in a wooden box. The experiment left her with a split lip, a torn dress, and incredible excitement. "It was like flying," she told Pidge.
She first saw an airplane in 1907 at the Iowa State Fair in Des Moines, but declined her father's invitation to fly in one because it didn't look interesting.
Until the age of twelve, Amelia was homeschooled by her mother, grandmother, and a governess. When the family moved to Des Moines, Amelia and Pidge enrolled in public school. Later, the family suffered from her father's alcoholism, which led to his dismissal and the confiscation of their property. They moved to St. Paul, but almost immediately the girls were sent to live with friends in Chicago. There Amelia graduated from Hyde Park High School in 1916. She began college in Pennsylvania, but soon dropped out.
In 1917, Earhart received a certificate as a nurse's aide from the Red Cross and began working at the Spadina Military Hospital in Toronto, Ontario, which she interrupted after the end of the war. In 1919, she entered Columbia University, but did not stay there long. She went to California to live with her parents.
Around the World Flight
The flight that Earhart planned would not be the first around the Earth, but it would be the longest - 47,000 km. She chose Fred Noonan and Harry Manning as navigators. They departed on March 17, 1937, from Oakland. In Hawaii, the plane went through a mechanic. They had to take off from Pearl Harbor, but instead of taking off, the plane spun around. The reason is not clear, but the flight was postponed because the damage to the machine was serious.
Earhart decided to try again with Noonan alone, from west to east due to meteorological reasons. They took off on June 1, 1937. They stopped in South America, Africa, India, and Southeast Asia. On June 29, they arrived in Lae, New Guinea. They had only 11,000 km left over the Pacific Ocean.
On July 2, they left Lae for Howland Island. There, the US Coast Guard ship "Itasca" was waiting for Earhart to help her land. Due to a series of errors, for which there are many theories, the radio navigation from the "Itasca" was not working. The ship's crew heard Earhart (and thus understood that her coordinates were incorrect), but she did not pick up their transmission. After several hours of attempts to contact them, the connection was lost. Subsequent radio and Morse code signals also did not reach the pilots, but it became clear that the plane was no longer in the air. Its distress signals were also detected by Pan American stations, but over the next five days no one was able to obtain sufficient data on its coordinates.
The "Itasca" began a search north and west of Howland. The search was soon taken over by the US Navy, which headed for the Phoenix Islands. A week after the plane's disappearance, reports were received that there were fresh human traces on Gardner Island, but neither Earhart nor Noonan nor the plane were seen.
The search lasted nine days and cost four million dollars. But underdeveloped search techniques and a lack of coordination in the efforts of the Navy and Coast Guard led to a dead end. No physical remains were found.
Theories about Earhart's disappearance
There are many theories about the disappearance of the plane and its crew. One of them, with many supporters, states that the fuel ran out and the plane sank in the ocean. This theory also finds evidence in Putnam's correspondence, which shows that the plane was not fully fueled in Lae. In 2002 and 2006, sonar searches were conducted, but the plane was not found.
Another theory is that of the International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery. According to it, Earhart's plane crashed near Gardner Island and crashed into the wreckage of a cargo ship. In 1940, an English pilot reported finding Earhart's skeleton on the southeastern tip of the island. In Fiji, English scientists measured the bones and concluded that they belonged to a large man. In 1998, forensic anthropologists announced that they were actually those of a woman, but could not determine with certainty whether they were Earhart's. The group also found objects — parts of men's and women's heels similar to those worn by Earhart and Noonan, an aluminum dashboard like from an airplane, and a piece of Plexiglas the thickness of an airplane window.
An expedition in the summer of 2007 brought new finds, but whether they are traces of Earhart and Noonan remains controversial. In 2010, a new expedition is being prepared, which claims that their theory can be proven with DNA testing.
There is also a theory about the rescue of Earhart and Noonan by a Japanese ship. At that time, the South Pacific was regularly patrolled by Japanese troops, and according to the theory (in which Earhart's mother strongly believes) the two pilots were captured. In 1966, journalist Fred Goerner published a book in which he claimed that the plane crashed in the Saipan archipelago, and Earhart and Noonan were captured and executed. The book was met with harsh criticism, but it also gave rise to countless rumors and other theories that lacked sufficient evidence. Among them were claims that Earhart was an American spy and that she was not dead but living in New Jersey under the name Irene Craigmill Bolan. Bolan denied being Earhart and even sued the author for making such claims in the book Amelia Earhart Lives. The publishers withdrew the book from the market and reached a settlement with Bolan.