Expedition rules out suspected Amelia Earhart plane debris on Nikumaroro

A research expedition to Nikumaroro has concluded that an object suspected of being wreckage from Amelia Earhart’s missing aircraft was most likely a collection of trees deposited along the remote Pacific atoll’s sandspit.

The team from Purdue University and the Archaeological Legacy Institute traveled to the island in Kiribati to examine the “Taraia Object,” an anomaly identified in satellite imagery in 2020 and visible in aerial images dating to 1938. Researchers had hoped it might be part of Earhart’s Lockheed Electra 10-E.

By the time the team reached the site, much of the debris had fragmented or washed away, leaving a Y-shaped section. Researchers said the reflective surface once thought possibly to be metal was instead a carbonate coating formed from concretized coral sand. Similar coatings were found on other objects nearby.

Severe weather kept the researchers aboard their vessel for three of the five days allocated to the search, while fuel and supply limits prevented an extension. The team nevertheless surveyed the lagoon and examined the site. Newsweek reported that researchers also found a roughly 30-inch steel tube in the lagoon that requires further study.

The finding rules out the Taraia Object as Earhart’s plane but does not resolve what happened to Earhart and navigator Fred Noonan, who disappeared on July 2, 1937, while attempting to fly around the world. Researchers continue to investigate the theory that they landed on Nikumaroro and became stranded there.