Amelia Earhart was a pioneer in women’s aviation and also a prominent historical figure in aviation .
She was born in Kansas in 1897 and rose to fame because of her achievements as a female aviator. At the time it wasn’t easy for a woman to become one and she was met with many obstacles due to this. Even her own family tried to discourage her from flying. However she rose above these challenges and become a renowned female pilot, setting many records and becoming the first female pilot to fly alone across the Atlantic Ocean.
Unfortunately Amelia is not only remembered for her groundbreaking achievements but also her mysterious disappearance after she set off on a global flight in 1937.On June 1, Amelia and Fred
Noonan, her navigator took off from Oakland, California, on an eastbound transcontinental flight on a twin- engine Lockheed Electra Plane. In less than a month they reached Lae, New Guinea. They had flown 22,000 miles and had 7,000 more miles to go before they reached Oakland again. Their next stop was Howland Island(a small island in the Pacific Ocean they had to fly 2,500 miles to after leaving Lae) so they could refuel.
Unfortunately that is when things went south. Overcast skies, radio transmission issues, and low fuel meant Earhart and Noonan never got to their destination. Their plane went missing and despite serious efforts to locate it which ended up constituting the most expensive air and sea search in American history at the time they were never found. Amelia was officially declared dead on January 5, 1939.
The US government in its report concluded that the plane had crashed into the ocean due to low fuel. But other theories about what happened emerged. Some believed Amelia was a secret spy for the US government and had been taken prisoner by the Japanese for spying on Japanese occupied islands.
Another theory was that they landed on an uninhabited island called Nikumaroro, where artefacts such as aircraft wreckage have been discovered. None of these theories have been proven to be true and her disappearance still remains one of the greatest unsolved mysteries of American History.
Amelia Earhart’s legacy still endures to this day and she’s an inspiration to young pilots everywhere.