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For many people, the story of Amelia Earhart is a legend. She is famous for her
many exploits as a flyer but she is still perhaps most well-known for her
disappearance. She vanished without a trace sometime in July 1937. As a young
woman, Amelia fell in love with flying. She was determined to learn to control
an airplane all by herself. Soon, she was spending all her free time on weekends
practising flying, taking off and landing at the airport near Boston. She was
soon offered an opportunity to be the first woman to cross the Atlantic Ocean,
flying from America to England. She was, at that time, not a very experienced
pilot yet, so two men would be piloting the plane-she would just go along for
the ride.
The flight was successfully completed, and Amelia was showered with
attention, although she protested that she had actually not done anything.
Amelia was determined to repeat the flight, only this time, she would fly solo.
She completed the flight in 1932, becoming the first woman to fly across the
Atlantic alone, but the flight had been fraught with obstacles. Weather
conditions had been bad and her navigation instrument had gradually failed.
Luckily, she landed safely in a field in Ireland, although she was not even sure
where she was at first.
After this, Amelia became even more famous. After her solo Atlantic flight,
Amelia continued to make and break records, showing the world that women too
could become accomplished pilots. She had one more challenge in mind. She wanted
to become the first person to fly round the world at its widest point-the
Equator. This had never been done before, although other pilots had already
circled the globe.
Accompanied by Fred Noonan, who helped her navigate the plane, Amelia flew
east, making numerous stops in countries such as Senegal, Eritrea, Siam, Malaya
and Australia. It was an extremely exhausting time for Amelia and Fred as they
got very little sleep. The fateful part of the journey was from New Guinea to
Howland Island, a tiny island in the Pacific, but Amelia never made it there.
She disappeared over the Pacific and was never found, in spite of all efforts to
find her plane. |
