Amelia Earhart
Aviation Pioneer · 1897–presumed 2 July 1937 (declared dead 1939)
Who is Amelia Earhart?
Amelia Earhart was an American aviation pioneer and author who became the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean in 1932, earning the Distinguished Flying Cross and international fame. A vocal advocate for women in aviation, she helped found The Ninety-Nines, an organization for female pilots, and set numerous speed and distance records throughout her career. In 1937, at age thirty-nine, she attempted to become the first woman to circumnavigate the globe by air, flying a Lockheed Electra 10E alongside navigator Fred Noonan. On 2 July 1937, during the most difficult leg of the journey, Earhart attempted to locate tiny Howland Island in the central Pacific, part of what is today the U.S. Minor Outlying Islands, to refuel. The U.S. Coast Guard cutter Itasca, stationed off Howland to guide her in, received a series of increasingly urgent radio transmissions from Earhart reporting she could not locate the island and was running low on fuel, before contact was lost entirely. A massive U.S. Navy and Coast Guard search failed to find any trace of the aircraft, and Earhart and Noonan were declared legally dead in January 1939. Her disappearance near Howland Island remains one of the most enduring mysteries in aviation history, and her writings and example continued to inspire generations of women pilots.
Sources: Amelia Earhart, Last Flight (compiled and edited by George Putnam, 1937) · Amelia Earhart, 20 Hrs., 40 Min.: Our Flight in the Friendship (1928) · U.S. Coast Guard cutter Itasca radio logs, 2 July 1937 · Mary S. Lovell, The Sound of Wings: The Life of Amelia Earhart (1989)