Thousands of new government records about Amelia Earhart’s disappearance have just been released. The U.S. National Archives shared four thousand six hundred twenty four pages of documents connected to her final flight. These include her last radio messages, maps, search logs and Navy reports.
Earhart’s final communication was on July two, nineteen thirty seven. The message said, “We are on the line one five seven three three seven we will repeat message.” After that, she vanished over the Pacific. The Navy began searching right away. Their official search lasted sixteen days and ended on July eighteen.
The newly released reports confirm her last known radio signal came at nineteen twelve GMT. They also list four possible places where she may have landed. Some spots showed signs of activity. McKean Island had a disturbed guano surface. Gardner Island, also called Nikumaroro, had marks suggesting fire or habitation. McKean Reef had strange debris. A dark object that looked like wreckage was seen near Sydney Island Lagoon.
The Navy and Coast Guard searched huge areas of the ocean. The USS Colorado and USS Lexington covered almost two hundred fifty thousand square miles. Seaplanes checked another twenty five thousand square miles each day. The reports say seven possible distress signals were heard between July two and July six. Two of them were near Gardner Island, which supports the idea that Earhart’s plane may have reached Nikumaroro.
The Navy also recalculated how long her plane could stay in the air. They estimated she had a fuel endurance of twenty hours and thirteen minutes. This was almost forty minutes more than earlier estimates. That meant she might have flown past Howland Island. But the Navy found no actual pieces of her plane. One line in the report says, “No evidence of aircraft remains was discovered.”
Some of the documents go back even earlier. A memo from November nineteen thirty six shows the Navy offering to help refuel her plane at Midway Island for her planned world flight. Other papers show that Earhart’s husband, George Putnam, helped manage her trip and communicated often with the Navy. The Navy did not pay for her flight but helped with logistics.
One record included a message from Japan after her disappearance. It expressed deep condolences and said that ships and stations near the Marshall Islands were told to help look for her.
The release of these documents was announced by Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard. She said this fulfills Donald Trump’s promise to make the Earhart files public and that more documents will be released as they are found.