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The search for Amelia Earhart’s plane on a remote island in the Pacific has resumed after severe weather kept researchers aboard their vessel for three days, the BBC reported.
The team travelled to Nikumaroro, part of Kiribati, to investigate the so-called Taraia Object, spotted in aerial images of the atoll’s lagoon. Researchers hope the work could shed light on the famed aviator’s disappearance.
Earhart vanished in 1937 while attempting to fly around the world, prompting decades of speculation about what happened to her.
Rough seas and strong winds kept the team on its research vessel until the weather cleared on Sunday. “We are finally getting off the ship and able to land on Nikumaroro,” expedition member and technology specialist Sirisha Bandla said in a video update from the deck of the Marin Mainiku.
The researchers arrived at the uninhabited atoll last week and began an underwater survey of the area. However, weather driven by strong El Niño conditions in the Pacific has so far prevented them from starting the second of three planned phases: probing underwater objects to establish their depth and dredging sediment.
“We’re working to get everything done today if we can,” Bandla said. “The crew’s really excited.”
Researchers are investigating the Taraia Object
Before reaching Lae, Papua New Guinea, on 2 July 1937, Earhart had flown her twin-engine Lockheed Electra from California across South America, Africa and Asia. She and her navigator, Fred Noonan, planned to travel from Lae towards Hawaii and then return to California.
The plane disappeared while the pair were trying to reach Howland Island, a remote, uninhabited coral island near Nikumaroro, to refuel. One theory is that Earhart mistakenly navigated to Nikumaroro, where she ditched the plane and died as a castaway.
Images of the Taraia Object, which Purdue University says can be seen in photographs dating back to 1938, appear to show the remains of a small aircraft in shallow water. Other explorers remain sceptical.
Interest in the expedition led New Zealand’s Air Force Museum to release previously unseen reconnaissance images of Nikumaroro on Friday. The black-and-white slides, taken from a seaplane in 1938, do not clearly show the Taraia Object. They do show the wreck of the SS Norwich City, a British merchant ship that ran aground during a storm in 1929, killing 11 people.
Purdue University and the US-based Archaeological Legacy Institute (ALI), which are leading the expedition, said the incident illustrated the risks around the island. A boat entering the atoll’s lagoon must pass through a narrow gap in the reef created by the British in 1963, the last time the island was inhabited.
The university said wind gusts of up to 27 knots (31mph) around the island until Sunday meant the transport boat could be driven into the reef by waves.
Expedition extended after weather delays
Purdue University said the Norwich City wreck may lend support to the researchers’ theory. It also said that, shortly after Earhart disappeared, a 15-year-old in Florida reported hearing her voice repeating “New York City” over her father’s shortwave radio. Supporters of the castaway theory argue the message may have been a misunderstanding of Earhart giving her location as near the Norwich City.
The three-day delay has led the team to extend the expedition to complete its fieldwork. The researchers have not said whether they have found promising evidence of Earhart’s plane.
ALI director Rick Pettigrew said the team was aware of worldwide interest in the expedition and would share its results “as soon as we are able”. Before the bad weather, Purdue University had suggested the Taraia Object might be identified within days.
Researchers have previously found evidence of human presence on the island around the time of Earhart’s disappearance. Some sceptics, however, believe the Taraia Object is a tree that fell from the atoll into the lagoon.
Previous searches for Earhart’s Electra have also been unsuccessful. In 2024, researchers said sonar images may have revealed the plane about 4,877m (16,000ft) beneath the surface near Howland Island, but the formation was later confirmed to be a rock.
An expedition in 2019 that investigated a photograph of what might have been landing gear protruding from the water near Nikumaroro also failed to find anything.
