Amelia Earhart was already very famous when she accepted what would be her last challenge. Until that day in 1937, her luck had never deserted her. She had gotten it all. In 1935 she had flown a plane between Honolulu and Oakland, a very dangerous journey that had claimed the lives of ten pilots. In 1928 she was the first woman to cross the Atlantic by air, but she was not flying the plane and she got there out of the frustration of another woman who was forbidden by her husband to make the trip.
“Life is more than just being a passenger.” “I felt like a bag of potatoes that was transported from one continent to another.” Those were her two statements about that historical event that made her famous. She would have to wait four years – well spent flying all over the United States – and get away with it.
On May 20, 1932, he finally crossed the Atlantic in a solo flight. Due to a miscalculation, she did not land at Londonderry airport, but in the wheat fields of an Irish farmer, but the goal was achieved: she had flown a plane from Newfoundland to Ireland alone for 14 hours and 56 minutes, eating hot a thermos and inhaling salts so as not to fall asleep.
Amelia dedicated herself to going to schools to encourage girls to study men’s careers, and to postpone marriage until they had a degree. Just what she did, that she married at 33 her publicist, George P. Putman, ten years her senior. When Putman proposed to her, she accepted with a long letter where she set her conditions: “I have the feeling that getting married is a stupid decision. I know there will be compensation, but I can’t hide my doubts from you. (…) I want you to understand that you will not be subject to any fidelity code and that I do not consider myself tied to you either (…) I must demand a cruel promise from you: that you will let me go within a year if we have not found happiness together. Putman accepted everything and, in addition, became the biggest promoter of his career.
Amelia only had to go around the world, and this is where her trail is lost. She was accompanied by a co-pilot, Fred Noonan, and from the recordings it is known that they ran out of fuel. From there everything is enigmas and speculations. Roosevelt, then president of the United States, ordered his desperate search that cost four million dollars, and every once in a while, an American university opens the case after finding what seems like a reliable lead.
The last time in 2018 when a study published in the journal Forensic Anthropology assured that some bones found in the Nikumaroro atoll had a high probability of belonging to the aviator. The new discovery has only fueled the mystery. Did Amelia die in midair? Did she manage to land and live for several years with her companion on Nikumaroro? 85 years later we don’t know.
