Al-Amn Magazine

AVIATION A lmost 90 years after her disappearance, aviation pioneer Amelia Earhart is once again making headlines: US President Donald Trump has announced on he would declassify all government documents relating to the legendary aviation pioneer. Researchers hope to finally find radio transcripts, secret government documents and possible eyewitness accounts in the declassified files that could clarify where Earhart really disappeared - and whether she was possibly taken prisoner by Japan. And it is not only in Washington, D.C. that the case is gaining momentum - recent clues and new finds in the South Pacific are fueling hopes of finally solving the mystery of Earhart’s disappearance. Amelia Earhart was the first woman to fly across the Atlantic Amelia Earhart was an icon of her time, a symbol of courage, independence and technical pioneering: she was the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic in 1932. In the 1930s, she was not only a celebrated pilot, but a worldwide celebrity - a female Charles Lindbergh. An idol of a generation that believed in the unlimited possibilities of modernity. In the summer of 1937, Amelia Earhart wanted to achieve one last great goal: the first circumnavigation of the globe in a powered aircraft - as the first female pilot in history. A journey of 47,000 kilometers, with 30 stopovers, across continents and oceans. But on the final leg, between Lae in Papua New Guinea, where Earhart made her last stopover, and tiny Howland Island - a barely visible atoll in the middle of the Pacific, halfway between Australia and Hawaii - she disappeared without a trace. Earhart’s last radio message was: “We must be on you now, but cannot see you.” Radio silence over the Pacific It later transpired that technical errors and misunderstandings in radio communication may have played a decisive role. According to US radio specialist Captain Almon A. Gray, Earhart had selected a radio frequency on which her radio direction finder could not provide a bearing. There was also an antenna problem - although she could not hear the Coast Guard, they received her clearly. Tragically, Earhart probably missed Howland Island by only a few dozen kilometers. The news of her disappearance shocked the world. The USA launched an unprecedented search operation - more than 60 ships and aircraft scoured the Pacific for weeks. But neither the wreckage of the plane nor any traces of her or her radio operator and navigator, Fred Noonan, are found. Amelia Earhart becomes a legend, her disappearance the greatest unsolved mystery in aviation history. What happened to her continues to puzzle historians, researchers and adventurers to this day. Guessing about Earhart Speculation began shortly after the disaster in July 1937. Some believe that the plane crashed in the open sea, others that it made an emergency landing on one of the remote atolls. Later, there were even rumors of the ship being captured in Japan. From the 1980s onwards, the search increasingly shifted to the island of Nikumaroro, a South Sea atoll that now belongs to the island state of Kiribati. The fina l approach? New exped i t i on aims to fina l l y so l ve t he mys tery of Ame l i a Earhart