Earhart Search Ship Reaches Nikumaroro, Survey Starts

The Marin Mainiku reached Nikumaroro on Monday, October 12. The Kiribati-flagged passenger ship had sailed from Tarawa over five days, carrying an international research team to one of the most remote atolls in the central Pacific.

The team is after Amelia Earhart's plane. Led by Rick Pettigrew of the Archaeological Legacy Institute and including researchers from Purdue University, the group is trying to locate Earhart's Lockheed Electra 10-E, which disappeared in 1937.

Their target is an anomaly in satellite imagery that Purdue has named the Taraia Object. The anomaly sits near the shore of the island's lagoon. According to Purdue's expedition team, it could lie under as little as five feet of water at low tide, plus some depth of sediment, and has appeared in aerial photographs of Nikumaroro since at least 1938.

On October 14, the expedition moved to the Taraia Peninsula and began an underwater survey. The team used a magnetometer to scan for ferrous metals and side-scan sonar to look for objects under lagoon sediment. No findings have been announced. "It's too early to reach conclusions," Pettigrew said in a Purdue update. "We've got a lot of science left to apply."

Coconut crabs ruled out camping on land. The team returns to the Marin Mainiku each evening, with shore access depending on tides and sea conditions.

The ship is expected to take the team back to Tarawa after roughly five days on the island.