# Team searches for Amelia Earhart's lost plane

> Researchers are heading to a remote Pacific island to investigate what could be the wreckage of aviator Amelia Earhart's Electra, missing since 1937.
- Title: Team searches for Amelia Earhart's lost plane · BBC News
- Summary: Researchers are heading to a remote Pacific island to investigate what could be the wreckage of aviator Amelia Earhart's Electra, missing since 1937. A team…
- Keywords: amelia earhart, archaeological legacy institute, purdue university, nikumaroro island, electra aircraft, pacific ocean, aviation history, wreck discovery, news, world, Team, searches
- Source: BBC News — https://bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c3y0e871rk4vo
- Published: 2026-10-10T18:22:29.115+00:00
- Read time: 1 min
- Topics: amelia earhart, archaeological legacy institute, purdue university, nikumaroro island, electra aircraft, pacific ocean, aviation history, wreck discovery, news, world
## Expedition departs for remote island
A team from the Archaeological Legacy Institute and Purdue University left Kiribati's capital on Wednesday. They expect to reach Nikumaroro Island in the Pacific Ocean by Monday.
## They're searching for Earhart's plane
The researchers hope to inspect the Taraia Object, spotted in satellite imagery in 2020 on the edge of a lagoon off Nikumaroro. Aerial photography from 1938 also shows the object.
## Earhart vanished in 1937
American aviator Amelia Earhart disappeared while attempting to circumnavigate the globe in 1937. She was piloting her Electra twin-engine plane when it vanished without trace near Howland Island.
## The journey to the island
The team departed Kiribati on Wednesday aboard the Marin Mainiku, a Kiribati National Shipping Line vessel. The eight hundred thirty mile journey takes them to Nikumaroro, also part of Kiribati.
## What the expedition lead expects
Richard Pettigrew, head of the Archaeological Legacy Institute and expedition lead, said finding Earhart's Electra would be the discovery of a lifetime.

> Finding Amelia Earhart's Electra aircraft would be the discovery of a lifetime.
## Sceptics doubt the theory
Ric Gillespie, who specialises in recovering historic aircraft wrecks, told Reuters the object looked like a tree that fell from the atoll into nearby water. He said the plane likely broke apart long ago.

> I'd love to find that airplane. It ain't gonna happen.
## Previous searches have failed
In 2024, researchers said sonar imaging near Howland Island found Earhart's plane at four thousand eight hundred seventy-seven metres below the surface. It was later confirmed to be a rock formation.
## Key takeaway

A team from the Archaeological Legacy Institute and Purdue University is travelling to Nikumaroro Island to inspect a possible wreck site of Amelia Earhart's plane, which vanished in 1937.