She was born 118 years ago. By the time of her disappearance in 1937, Amelia Earhart had logged thousands of miles and hundreds of hours of airtime.
In an age when men dominated the sky, Earhart was a household name. She was the first woman to fly across the Atlantic – a feat she accomplished just over 87 years ago in June of 1928.
Enroute to notoriety, Earhart was forced to make an unexpected stopover in Eastern Passage, N.S. on June 23, 1928. She was a passenger on a Fokker Trimotor floatplane called Friendship. Before it could complete its transatlantic flight, it ran into heavy fog in Halifax.
Halifax journalist and author Dean Jobb says the three crew members onboard, including Earhart, didn’t want to stay, but weather conditions left them no choice.
“They had no intention of coming to Halifax,” he says. “In fact, it sounds like they were beyond Halifax when they really had to turn back and reground and get more fuel and wait for the weather to break.”
The crew of the Friendship was forced to spend the night. Earhart tried to keep to herself, but Jobb says it was tough.
“She was here in Halifax for a day, didn’t leave the place at first and then finally went to a hotel in Dartmouth and stayed there the whole time,” he says. “She did pose for a picture with two of the crew, but it was the pilot and navigator that ended up talking to the press and holding them at bay.”
Earhart would go on to greater things, inspiring generations of female aviators and trailblazers.
On May 20th, 1932, Earhart was in Harbour Grace, N.L. just before the world’s first transatlantic solo flight by a woman.
Other solo flights would follow, including her attempt to circumnavigate the globe in 1937, cementing Earhart’s place in the history books.
Starting in California, she and navigator Fred Noonan began their journey. They left Miami on June 1st, travelling from South America, to Africa, to Northeast Asia. Finally, 22,000 miles later, they landed in New Guinea.
With 7,000 miles to go, they took off again, heading to a small island about 2,500 miles away between Australia and Hawaii. But they never made it, launching one of the most enduring mysteries of all time.
The search for Earhart’s plane has been ongoing for generations. The latest quest wrapped up earlier this month on an uninhabited island in the Pacific. There were no definitive answers.
Last week, another team said they may be able to prove by the end of the summer what happened to Earhart and Noonan. If they’re successful, it may finally write the final chapter in the life of a remarkable woman whose accomplishments have soared through ages.
