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13h ago

Amelia Earhart Nikumaroro Expedition Delayed to 2026 Over Permits, Cyclone Season

Organizers attribute the delay to unresolved Kiribati permits, with the cyclone season closing the safe window.

Amelia Earhart and her navigator, Fred Noonan, pose in front of their twin-engine Lockheed Electra in Natal, Brazil, June 18, 1937, during their flight around the world.
A receiver and other components identical to the radio system used by Earhart and Noonan have been restored by Nauticos to replicate the communications between Earhart's plane and the Itasca Coast Guard vessel that was waiting for her on Howland Island.
Pilot Amelia Earhart poses for a portrait in and airplane in circa 1936. (Photo courtesty Library of Congress/Getty Images)
Artifacts found on Nikumaroro that TIGHAR believes may have been connected to Earhart. (From top left) A jar similar in style to that of Dr. C.H. Berry's Freckle Ointment. Earhart was known to have been concerned about her freckles; fragments of red material chemically consistent with an early 20th century cosmetic; a broken-apart knife, similar to a knife listed in the Electra's inventory; a shattered glass bottle. The bottle design was patented on May 30, 1933, according to TIGHAR research.

Overview

  • The joint team from Purdue University, the Purdue Research Foundation, and the Archaeological Legacy Institute scrubbed a planned November 4 departure from Majuro to Nikumaroro.
  • The group says it is still navigating multi‑layer approvals within Kiribati, including environmental, fisheries, research permissions, and artifact curation plans.
  • Leaders plan to resume after the South Pacific cyclone season, with no launch expected before at least April and a revised schedule to be set in 2026.
  • The mission aims to inspect the Taraia Object in Nikumaroro’s lagoon, first noted in 2020 satellite imagery and visible in 1938 photos, which ALI argues could be Earhart’s Lockheed Electra.
  • Skeptics, including TIGHAR’s Ric Gillespie, dispute the hypothesis, noting prior searches at the spot found nothing, while the field plan remains to document, survey with magnetometer and sonar, then dredge for identification.