Amelia Earhart Plane Potentially Found: Purdue Team Probes Taraia Object on Nikumaroro
October 16, 2026
Is the Amelia Earhart plane potentially found? For almost 90 years, her last flight has been aviation’s biggest unsolved case. This week, a team backed by Purdue University is on a remote Pacific atoll, just a few feet from what it hopes is the answer. As of Friday morning, October 16, the object has not been identified. But the next 48 hours could change that.
The expedition and the Taraia Object
The 17-person team is a joint effort of the Archaeological Legacy Institute (ALI), the Purdue Research Foundation and Purdue University. It reached Nikumaroro, an uninhabited atoll in the Republic of Kiribati once known as Gardner Island, on October 12 after a five-day voyage from Tarawa. Nikumaroro sits about 400 miles southeast of Howland Island, the refueling stop Earhart and navigator Fred Noonan never reached on July 2, 1937.
The target is a shape the team calls the Taraia Object. It was first noticed in satellite imagery in 2020, and researchers later found it in aerial photos of the lagoon taken as early as 1938. ALI director Rick Pettigrew thinks it could be the remains of Earhart’s Lockheed Electra 10-E. Purdue has a personal stake in that: the Purdue Research Foundation funded the Electra, and Earhart planned to return it to the university after her round-the-world flight.
Purdue estimates the object lies about 10 feet from shore, under as little as five feet of water (depending on the tide) and an unknown depth of sediment.
What’s been done, and what’s next
The crew set up camp and cut a trail across the island on October 13. On October 14 they began the underwater survey with a magnetometer, which detects metal, and side-scan sonar. Rough seas kept everyone off the island on October 15, but Purdue says the expedition is still on schedule.
Two more field days remain. The plan is to probe the object directly with a hydroprobe to learn its depth, orientation and surface material, then clear the sediment with a water induction dredge so the team can see it. Purdue says it expects an update on the object’s identity before the team leaves the atoll. Keep in mind that Nikumaroro runs 17 hours ahead of Eastern time.
The radio calls that point to Nikumaroro
The last message everyone agrees came from Earhart reached the Coast Guard cutter Itasca at Howland on the morning of July 2, 1937: “We are on the line 157 337 … running on line north and south.” A line of position on 157/337 degrees, extended southeast past Howland, runs through the Phoenix Islands, which include Gardner. That is the backbone of the “castaway hypothesis.”
The calls that came afterward are the intriguing part. In the days after the disappearance, Navy and Coast Guard stations, Pan American Airways operators and private listeners across the Pacific and North America reported hearing signals on Earhart’s frequencies. The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery (TIGHAR) collected 120 reported receptions. Its 2018 analysis rated 57 of them credible, 25 uncertain and 38 not credible, using radio-propagation modeling and the content of each message.
TIGHAR found that the credible signals fell between July 2 and July 7 and, with two exceptions, came during nighttime hours at Gardner. Its explanation: the Electra was sitting on the reef, and Earhart could only run an engine to power the radio when the tide was low enough. A plane at the bottom of the ocean could not have transmitted at all.
The best-known account comes from Betty Klenck, a teenager in St. Petersburg, Florida. She said she heard a woman’s voice on a shortwave set and wrote down fragments in a notebook. TIGHAR published the notebook but says it has not ruled on whether the transmissions were authentic.
Amelia Earhart plane potentially found: what it would and wouldn’t prove
Headlines may say the Amelia Earhart plane is potentially found, but “potentially” is doing real work. To be clear: the radio evidence supports the idea that Earhart landed on Nikumaroro; it does not prove it. The 57 “credible” ratings come from a researcher-led analysis that TIGHAR published itself. Some reports may have been hoaxes, misheard stations or wishful listening. Earlier TIGHAR expeditions turned up suggestive artifacts but no confirmed aircraft wreckage.
Many historians still believe the simplest explanation: the Electra ran out of fuel and went down in the ocean near Howland. Outside skeptics have also said the Taraia Object could turn out to be a natural feature or ordinary debris, such as a fallen tree. If the dredge exposes aluminum skin, rivets or engine parts that match an Electra 10-E, that would be the strongest physical evidence yet. If not, the mystery stays open.
Why this matters to pilots
Earhart’s last flight is a case study in the basics every pilot still trains on. Her radio contact with Itasca broke down over mismatched frequencies and procedures. Her navigation depended on a single line of position with no fix along it. And her flight plan left very little fuel margin for a tiny island target. Clear communication, solid navigation and conservative planning are the same skills drone pilots are tested on. If you’re preparing for the FAA exam, our Part 107 course covers airspace, radio procedures and preflight planning in the same practical way.
We’ll update this story when Purdue releases its identification findings.
Sources: Purdue University (Oct. 15 update); Purdue University (Oct. 14 update); Purdue University (Oct. 12 update); TIGHAR Post-Loss Radio Analysis; TIGHAR: Betty’s Notebook; Live Science; ExplorersWeb.
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