A 17-person expedition led by the Archaeological Legacy Institute, in partnership with Purdue University and the Purdue Research Foundation, has arrived at the uninhabited Pacific island of Nikumaroro to investigate a submerged object that may be the wreckage of Amelia Earhart’s Lockheed Electra 10E. The team has not yet begun examining the object.
The group reached the island’s western side around 8 p.m. local time Monday after a five-day voyage, and did no fieldwork that night, Purdue said. Its first day ashore is to be spent moving equipment, clearing vegetation and setting up staging areas. Work shifts to the Taraia Peninsula on Wednesday, the university said.
The investigation will proceed in stages: a magnetometer survey for metal, sonar to detect objects under the lagoon sediment, a hydroprobe to touch the object directly, and finally a water induction dredge to remove sediment for visual inspection. Aerial photos suggest the object lies about 10 feet from shore under as little as 5 feet of water, plus sediment of unknown depth, according to Purdue. The team expects to spend five days on the island, and weather could affect operations.
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Rick Pettigrew, the institute’s executive director and the expedition’s leader, has said he believes Earhart and navigator Fred Noonan landed on the island. The team has said there is “very strong” evidence that the object, first spotted in satellite imagery in 2020, is the Electra. Organizers say it appears in photographs dating to 1938, per the foundation’s announcement, and cite radio bearings from 1937 transmissions that converge on the island.
Others are skeptical. Ric Gillespie, executive director of the International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery, has voiced skepticism, saying his group searched that spot and found nothing. Air Data News reported that he told Reuters the object is probably a fallen tree. A 2024 sonar image that seemed to show a plane turned out to be a rock formation.
Steve Schultz, Purdue’s senior vice president and general counsel and a field assistant on the expedition, told CBS the university owes it to Earhart’s legacy to follow the evidence. USA TODAY reported that Purdue is discussing an agreement with Kiribati to take custody of any wreckage, and that the team would return next year for a full excavation if it finds the plane.
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