Purdue University’s marine archaeology team, led by Richard Pettigrew, has set sail for Nikumaroro island, Kiribati, to investigate the Taraia Object, a submerged structure that might be the missing Lockheed Electra of Amelia Earhart. The five‑day expedition will use drones, sonar, and magnetometers before deploying a hydraulic dredge to recover any physical evidence.
Earhart vanished on July 2, 1937, while piloting her Electra with navigator Fred Noonan over the Pacific. The Taraia Object first appeared in satellite imagery in 2020 and appears in a 1938 aerial photograph, prompting speculation that it could be the aircraft’s wreckage.
Steve Schultz, Purdue’s senior vice‑president, said the find would solve "one of the great mysteries of the 20th century." He added that a confirmed wreck would finally close a chapter that has haunted aviation historians for eight decades.
Nikumaroro has long fueled theories that Earhart and Noonan landed there after failing to locate Howland Island. Previous searches, including a 2019 dive led by Robert Ballard, failed to locate any wreckage, and Ric Gillespie of TIGHAR has doubted the object is anything but a fallen pandanus tree.
The expedition will begin with a drone survey, then deploy sonar and magnetometers to map the lagoon’s seafloor before the dredge attempts to retrieve the object. If the team confirms the structure is a plane, the discovery will be announced in a joint report from Purdue and the Archaeological Legacy Institute, potentially ending an enduring aviation mystery.