It’s been 87 years since legendary pilot Amelia Earhart disappeared over the Pacific Ocean

(QUEEN CITY NEWS) — She remains America’s favorite missing person: aviation pioneer Amelia Earhart.

She was so popular in the 1930s, her fame and admiration made her the Taylor Swift of her day. Amelia vanished toward the end of her attempt to become the first woman pilot to fly around the world. She was already a well-known record-breaking pilot, author, fashionista, and women’s rights advocate before her final flight.

In June 1937, she and Fred Noonan took off from Oakland, California, in her Lockheed Electra twin-engine plane. They were on an eastbound flight to circumnavigate the world.

A month later, they reached Lae, New Guinea, having flown 22,000 miles with 7,000 more to go before reaching Oakland again.

From New Guinea, they had to fly 2,500 miles to a tiny island in the middle of the Pacific, Howland Island. They never made it.

In the nearly 90 years since her disappearance, there’s been a slew of questions, including what happened. She likely ran out of fuel and ditched in the ocean. There were extreme efforts to find her- marking the most expensive air and sea search in American history up to that point.

The Itasca, a U.S. Coast Guard cutter, was on standby to meet her at Howland Island with fuel and a homing beacon to guide her. The Itasca could hear Amelia talking to them on the radio, but she couldn’t hear their responses due to radio issues. The homing beacon’s battery on Howland Island was weak and then died. With no operative radio navigational aid, she never found the island.

As far as the latest attempt to find her: Tony Romeo, the CEO of Charleston-based Deep Sea Vision, is an explorer who says he has sonar images of what he thinks is Amelia’s plane — sitting on the sandy bottom of the Pacific. He is making plans to take an underwater drone down there to confirm, but it is 20,000 feet down — farther than where the Titanic sank. It could take five to 10 years to prepare to get to it.

We could hear more from Romeo on July 19 and July 20 when he speaks at the Amelia Earhart Festival in Earhart’s hometown in Kansas.

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