New trove of Amelia Earhart docs reveal frantic search after legendary aviator vanished during historic 1937 flight

A trove of declassified documents released Friday by the Trump administration sheds new light on the frantic search for Amelia Earhart after she mysteriously vanished on her infamous final flight across the Pacific nearly 90 years ago. 

The 4,624-page tranche includes desperate Coast Guard messages sent to Earhart, 39, in the immediate days after the pioneering aviator and her flight navigator, Fred Noonan, disappeared on July 2, 1937, during her historic but ill-fated attempt to become the first woman to fly around the world.

4

A Coast Guard dispatcher urgently broadcast to Earhart on July 4, 1937, saying they were using “every possible means [to] establish contact” and providing detailed instructions to reach them if she heard the signal.

No signals were detected on Earhart’s plane frequencies, fueling fears she had crashed her legendary Lockheed 10-E Electra into the shark-infested waters off Howland Island, midway between Hawaii and Australia, as the massive air and sea search raged on, the documents showed. 

In one heartbreaking message, a dispatcher described personnel “constantly” communicating with Earhart before she vanished and expressing their admiration.

“Talked Amelia so long now like searching for close friend though most have never seen her some heard her voice,” the choppy July 5, 1937, message said.

“Those who did have great admiration for courage when she called in slow measured words half hour field left no landfall stop not until last message did voice show emotion stop. Unverified here Noonan with Amelia.”

The next day, hopes soared when reports spotted flares near Howland Island — which later turned out to be meteors, the documents showed. 

4

The remaining documentssaid on X Friday night. 

“These records include reports, maps, and other documents Gabbard wrote in her post.

“As agencies identify additional files, the new documents will be uploaded to @USNatArchives on a rolling basis, alongside those previously released.”

4

Earhart and Noonan set off from Lae, Papua New Guinea, aiming to refuel on Howland Island en route to Honolulu and their final destination of Oakland, Calif., but strong headwinds in Lae forced her radio transmissions to go silent. 

The US Navy and Coast Guard conducted a 16-day search for the missing duo without success, and Earhart was officially declared dead on Jan. 5, 1939. 

Despite many attempts and millions of dollars spent over nearly nine decades, neither Earhart’s remains nor the wreckage of her plane have ever been located — with the latest million-dollar expedition by Tony Romero and his Deep Sea Vision team coming to naught last year.

4

Romero, a South Carolina-based deep-sea explorer, captured a sonar image of an aircraft-shaped object that he believed was Earhart’s plane in the Pacific Ocean, which was later confirmed to be a rock formation. 

On Nov. 4, a 15-person crew – made up of researchers from Purdue University and the Archeological Legacy Institute (ALI) – set off for a remote island in the South Pacific to investigate whether a strange metallic object, called the “Taraia Object,” is Earhart’s missing aircraft.

The three-week expedition will zero in on the mysterious discovery first spotted in 2015 satellite images on the north shore of the Nikumaroro lagoon. 

Researchers said the enigmatic find – believed to be the main body and tail of the missing aircraft – is located underwater in a lagoon on the island, located between Hawaii and Fiji near the center of the Pacific Ocean. 

The search team is due back on Nov. 21.Friday’s document purge comes almost two months after President Trump pledged to declassify and make public government records related to Earhart and her final flight.