Amelia Earhart: The Last Flight and the Rumour of a Japanese Capture

On the morning of 2 July 1937, Amelia Earhart and navigator Fred Noonan took off from Lae, New Guinea, for Howland Island in the central Pacific. Howland was only a low strip of land a few kilometres long. The U.S. Coast Guard cutter Itasca waited offshore to transmit radio signals and guide them in. If Earhart found Howland, she would complete the most dangerous leg of her round-the-world flight.

At about 7:42 a.m., Earhart reported that they could not see the island and were running low on fuel. At 8:43, she said the aircraft was flying along the 157-337 position line, and then the transmissions stopped. No aircraft, bodies, or confirmed wreckage were found. The U.S. Navy sent the carrier USS Lexington, the battleship USS Colorado, and many search aircraft, but the search ended without an answer.