Amelia Earhart was a pilot who flew airplanes, and she learned to fly by taking flying lessons before she received her pilot's license in 1923. In 1928 she was the first woman to cross the Atlantic by air, but she rode as a passenger on the Friendship while two men flew the plane. On the final hop from Wales to England, Earhart did fly the plane, and she wrote a book about the flight, titled 20 hours and 40 minutes. She set many flying records. Some people think she was the first person to fly alone across the Atlantic, but she was not. In 1932 she became the first woman, and the second person, to do it. Paris had been the intended destination of the 1932 flight, but it still counted as the first solo transatlantic flight by a woman. It was her second trip across the Atlantic, making her the first person to cross it twice by air.
Earhart flew a Lockheed 5B Vega on the 1932 flight, and veteran pilot Bernt Balchen prepared and tested it. She left Newfoundland on May 20, 1932, for her solo Atlantic flight, departing Harbour Grace in the evening and soon running into poor weather. The flight did not go smoothly. The altimeter malfunctioned, so Earhart flew blind for five hours, and flames spewed out the side of the engine. Ice formed on the wings and forced her to fly just above the waves. The record-breaking flight took fourteen hours and fifty-six minutes after the departure from Harbour Grace, and Earhart touched down in a farmer's field at Culmore, near Londonderry, Northern Ireland.
After landing, Earhart said tomato juice had been her only meal since leaving America. She arrived at Hanworth Airfield in London on May 22, 1932, where reporters were waiting, and the flight made her an international hero. She was also the first president of the Ninety-Nines, a group of women pilots. Her solo flight from Honolulu to Oakland began on January 11, 1935, and she flew alone over the Pacific Ocean from Hawaii to California. In 1935 she also became the first person to fly solo from Los Angeles to Mexico City, and she joined Purdue University as a counselor on careers for women.
In 1937 Earhart tried to fly around the world in a Lockheed Electra. The flight set off from Miami, Florida, on June 1, 1937, and Fred Noonan was the navigator who flew with her. In July 1937 they left New Guinea heading for tiny Howland Island, where the Coast Guard cutter Itasca was waiting. Radio contact between the plane and the Itasca was lost on July 2, 1937. The U.S. Navy and Coast Guard carried out a very large search in July 1937, which lasted about two weeks and found no trace of the plane or its crew. As of November 2026 the Electra has not been found.
Words to know
- altimeter: height gauge
- navigator: route finder
- transatlantic: across the Atlantic
- cutter: Coast Guard ship
