America’s fascination with legendary pilot Amelia Earhart is never-ending. Her flying accomplishments and her baffling disappearance have intrigued Americans for nearly 80 years.
She was the first female pilot to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean, a feat she accomplished in 1932 before demolishing other flying records and writing best sellers about her adventures. She was a media darling before the term was even coined. Then, on July 2, 1937, three-quarters of the way through a 29,000-mile around-the-world flight, she and navigator Fred Noonan vanished on approach to Howland Island in the Pacific Ocean. Her plane was never found.
Earhart’s namesake and distant relative, Amelia Rose Earhart, is finalizing plans to re-create the legend’s final flight.
Next summer, Earhart, 30, a Denver weather and traffic co-anchor, and co-pilot Patrick Carter, a Fayetteville, Ark., businessman and adventurer, will take off from Oakland for a two-week, 100-hour flight that will approximate as closely as possible the original flight. They’ll make the trek in a state-of-the-art, $4.6-million, 2014 model PC-12 NG provided by Pilatus Business Aircraft of Broomfield, Colo., one of two principal sponsors.
For the complete story by Larry Copeland of USAToday, click here.
