A team led by Richard Pettigrew will search Nikumaroro’s lagoon in Nov. 2025 for wreckage of Amelia Earhart’s plane, using advanced tech to test the theory she crash-landed there in 1937.

A search expedition led by Richard Pettigrew and Purdue University is set to begin in November 2025, using advanced technology to investigate a metallic object in Nikumaroro Island’s lagoon, believed to be part of Amelia Earhart’s missing Lockheed Electra 10-E. The team, supported by the Nikumaroro Hypothesis, aims to confirm if Earhart crash-landed on the island in 1937. While mainstream historians believe she crashed into the Pacific, this theory suggests she survived briefly as a castaway. The mission, following years of research and prior expeditions, uses sonar, magnetometers, and dredging to explore the site, with a high probability of success predicted by researchers due to new data and technology.