Purdue-backed expedition rules out Nikumaroro site in Earhart search

Purdue University announced Monday that an expedition it backed has ruled out a suspected wreckage site in the long search for Amelia Earhart's Lockheed Electra 10-E. Researchers said an object seen in satellite imagery was most likely a cluster of large trees piled along a sandspit in the lagoon on Nikumaroro Island in the South Pacific.

The 17-member team travelled to examine the so-called Taraia Object, a shape first noticed in satellite images in 2020. By the time the group arrived, much of the material had broken apart or washed away, leaving a Y-shaped fragment. Investigators found its reflective look, once read as a sign of metal, came from a carbonate coating.

"I think we accomplished our goal completely," expedition leader Rick Pettigrew said. "The hypothesis has been tested, and the results are in."

Other items were recovered, including a steel tube about 30 inches long. The team plans to study the finds to learn more about how objects move through the lagoon and gather along the Taraia Peninsula. Bad weather cut into the work, stretching the expedition to seven days near Nikumaroro, four of them ashore.

Earhart and navigator Fred Noonan went missing on July 2, 1937, while trying to reach Howland Island on a round-the-world flight. The expedition rested on the theory that the two landed on the island's reef and were later stranded.

Ric Gillespie, co-founder of The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery, had earlier questioned whether the suspected wreckage was an aircraft at all, suggesting it was a fallen tree.