On August 7, Ballard will depart for Nikumaroro, an uninhabited island in the western Pacific Ocean where Earhart, who was also the first female aviator to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean, and navigator Fred Noonan may have last landed before disappearing.
On July 2, 1937, Earhart and Noonan were attempting to make a circumnavigational flight of the world in a Lockheed Model 10-E Electra aircraft after taking off from Lae, New Guinea, when they disappeared. Earhart and Noonan were trying to locate Howland Island, which is about 350 nautical miles from Nikumaroro, at the time of their disappearance.
Ballard’s expedition in search of Earhart and Noonan’s plane will be filmed by National Geographic for a documentary that will air on October 20.
People have been searching for Earhart and Noonan’s plane ever since they went missing, with the US Coast Guard and Navy surveying the area where they are believed to have disappeared using both ships and planes. The US government’s theory is that Earhart’s plane most likely crashed before sinking into the Pacific Ocean.
According to National Geographic, one of the strongest theories proposed by The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery (TIGHAR) is that Earhart and Noonan landed on Nikumaroro.
“A photograph of the island from October 1937 shows a blurry shape that could have been part of the Electra’s landing gear. And radio messages logged in the days after Earhart disappeared suggest that she ended up a castaway on Nikumaroro,” National Geographic explains.
So far, TIGHAR has sent 13 expeditions to the island. Forensic dogs were last able to locate a campsite on the island where a human may have died. Soil samples are currently being tested for DNA, according to National Geographic.
“I fervently hope the expedition is successful,” Ric Gillespie, TIGHAR’s executive director, told National Geographic.
Ballard’s expedition will consist of mapping the ocean floor and using various kinds of remotely operated vehicles to scan different parts of the island.
“This is by far the most sophisticated underwater technology we’ve ever had,” Tom King, an archaeologist who has been part of expeditions in Nikumaroro, told National Geographic. “It’s going to be really interesting to apply Ballard’s technology.”
In addition to the Titanic, Ballard has found parts of former US President John F. Kennedy’s World War II patrol boat in the Solomon Sea, the German battleship Bismarck in the Atlantic and many ships in the Black Sea.