Her airplane and remains have never been found.
There are still people who speculate, theorize, and foster conspiracy theories about what happened to her. Most scholars think that she simply ran out of gas, and that her airplane rests on the sea bottom approximately 17,000 feet below sea level.In 1937 she began a flight around the world in a twin engine Lockheed L-10E Electra travelling eastward. She had already flown about 22,000 miles (35,000 km) of the journey, which is most of the way around the earth. All that remained was the difficult journey over the Pacific Ocean. This was prior to the invention of all the electronic navigation aids which are available today, such as GPS.
On July 2, 1937 Earhart left New Guinea attempting to fly to the tiny Howland Island which was 2,556 miles (4,113 km) away at 0.804N, -176.642W. She got very close, because the ships waiting for her reported that they were able to hear her transmissions extremely strong. The receiver on her airplane was malfunctioning, so she was not able to hear them or perform any sort of direction finding or radio navigation. She indicated to them that she was flying 1,000 feet above sea level and was running very low on fuel at the time.
Although there have been many reports and theories over the years, she and her airplane have never been found. The latest theory is that her airplane crashed onto Nikumaroro (Gardner) Island in the Phoenix chain of islands at -4.671S, -174.524W. This island lies approximately 400 miles south southeast of Howland Island.
I am a pilot holding instrument and multi-engine ratings. I have approximately 2,000 hours of time logged as pilot in command. In my judgement it does not seem likely that she was able to fly 400 miles when she was extremely low of fuel, but I do not rule the possibility out entirely.
-
--
-
-
-
-
-
-
--
-