ATCHISON, Kan. – Aviation enthusiasts and curious guests filled the Fox Theater in Atchison, eager to get an inside look into the theories and possible whereabouts of Amelia Earhart.
The Amelia Earhart Hanger Museum hosted an ‘Adventure Ameila’ event, which gave guests insights into five panelists’ thoughts about where Amelia Earhart, her navigator, Fred Noonan, and her Lockheed Electra 10-E aircraft went missing during her attempt to make a record-breaking flight to become the first female pilot to fly across the world. The events were a part of a weekend long ‘Amelia Earhart Festival’ celebration during Earhart’s birthday.
Liz Smith, one of the panelists of the Adventure Amelia event said that The International Date line could be a determining factor in the disappearance. In addition to Smith’s theory, she has also spent seven weeks researching in the area of the Pacific Ocean near Howland Island where Amelia was thought to disappear.
Her International Date line idea says that time changes and celestial navigation could have led Earhart and Noonan to incorrectly locate their intended next stop, or possibly finding a wrong location during this leg of her flight, since their target destination was only one mile long.
“Looking at the course of the flight, it became apparent to me that an er
Moderator Dorothy Cochrane, Tony Romeo, Lloyd Romeo, Liz Smith, Rod Blocksome, Gary LaPook, theorized about the whereabouts of Amelia Earhart in Fox Theatre in Atchison.
ror in date could have caused a mistake in the navigation and led Amelia and Fred to the wrong coordinates for Howland Island,” Smith said.
Smith explains her theory on her website, ‘The Date Line Theory Potential Effects of the International Date Line on Navigation During Amelia Earhart’s 1937 World Flight.’
“It is my belief that had it not been for one simple error, this talented and courageous duo would have made it safely to Howland Island and onward to Hawaii and California, completing their World Flight. It is time we recognize them for their achievements, rather than their disappearance,” Smith said.
With the help and advancements of Smith and other explorers, Deep Sea Vision, a marine robotics company, are thought to believe they may have discovered Amelia’s Electra 10-E aircraft. In late January of 2024, Deep Sea Vision released sonar images of their findings at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean which closely resemble Amelia’s Lockheed Electra 10-E aircraft.
“For us it was always a math problem, we divided up and created a grid that had the highest probability for the aircraft… We wanted to hit the most area possible in the least amount of time possible,” said Tony Romeo, CEO and founder of Deep Sea Vision.
The Romeos and Deep Sea Vision plan to take more in-depth photos of the plane-shaped objects when they set out on their next mission. Though not giving an exact coordinate of their findings, Tony said that these missions require navigating through some of the most remote and challenging oceanic terrain.
Questions arose during the closing of the event asking that if this is in fact Amelia’s Lockheed Electra 10-E aircraft, is it ethical to be brought up out of the Pacific.
“It belongs in her building, and we all agree. As I see it, this is her hometown… she needs to come home,” Tony said.
Karen Seaberg, founder of the Amelia Earhart Hangar Museum said the local community and sponsors of the event are what keep the festival and new forums like ‘Adventure Amelia’ and the “Deep Dive with Deep Sea Vision” going.
“I’ve been involved with this since 1997… Now, we’re in the 27th year of the festival that we thought was only going to be one year.”
