Expedition finds no trace of Amelia Earhart's plane on Nikumaroro

A group of researchers hoping to find Amelia Earhart's missing plane near a remote South Pacific island announced on Sunday 18 October 2026 that they had not found the aircraft. The team said evidence gathered at the Taraia Peninsula on Nikumaroro confirmed that the visual anomaly first seen in satellite imagery in 2020 was likely a collection of large trees deposited along the peninsula's sandspit, according to CBS News.

The search for the wreckage of Earhart's plane had resumed after severe weather forced researchers to stop for several days. The team travelled to Nikumaroro Island, part of Kiribati, to investigate the so-called Taraia Object, which was spotted in the atoll's lagoon in aerial imagery, the BBC reported.

Earhart vanished in 1937 while attempting to circumnavigate the globe, prompting decades of speculation about her fate. One theory holds that Earhart unintentionally navigated to Nikumaroro, where she ditched her plane and died a castaway.

How the search unfolded

Rough seas and strong winds kept the team on its research vessel for three days until the weather cleared on Sunday. Technology specialist Sirisha Bandla, part of the expedition, said in a video update from the deck of the vessel Marin Mainiku that the team was finally able to land on the island. "We are finally getting off the ship and able to land on Nikumaroro," she said, according to the BBC.

Weather powered by strong El Niño conditions had so far prevented the team from beginning a second of three phases, in which underwater objects are probed for depth and sediment is dredged. Because of the three-day hold, the research team extended its expedition time to complete its fieldwork.

Purdue University and the US-based Archaeological Legacy Institute (ALI) are spearheading the expedition. ALI director Rick Pettigrew said the team was aware of global interest in the expedition and would share its results "as soon as we are able", the BBC reported.

To enter the atoll's lagoon, a boat must navigate a narrow gap in the reef created by the British in 1963, the last time the island was inhabited. Purdue said wind gusts of up to 27 knots (31mph) around the island until Sunday meant the transport boat could be knocked into the reef by crashing waves.

What happens next

The search for Earhart's plane has long frustrated researchers. In 2024, researchers said sonar imaging suggested Earhart's plane might lie about 4,877m (16,000ft) below the surface near Howland Island, but this was later confirmed to be a rock formation. A 2019 expedition investigating a photograph of what might have been landing gear protruding from the water near Nikumaroro also found nothing.

Earhart had flown from California across South America, Africa and Asia in her twin-engine Lockheed Electra when she arrived in Lae, Papua New Guinea on 2 July 1937, from where she and navigator Fred Noonan planned to travel towards Hawaii and back to California. Interest in the expedition prompted New Zealand's Air Force Museum to publish previously unseen reconnaissance images of Nikumaroro on Friday; the 1938 black-and-white slides do not obviously show the Taraia Object but do show the wreck of the SS Norwich City.