WASHINGTON DC- Today Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, joined by Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood, hosted an event to celebrate Amelia Earhart and the United States' ties to its Pacific neighbors.
On July 2, 1937, almost 75 years ago, Amelia Earhart and her navigator Fred Noonan left the Territory of New Guinea (now Papua New Guinea) en route Howland Island in the South Pacific, but they never arrived.
"Now Amelia Earhart may have been an unlikely heroine for a nation down on its luck, but she embodied the spirit of an America coming of age and increasingly confident, ready to lead in a quite uncertain and dangerous world. She gave people hope and she inspired them to dream bigger and bolder. When she took off on that historic journey, she carried the aspirations of our entire country with her," said Clinton.
-New search is on to solve the mystery of Amelia Earhart's 1937 missing Flight-
"Amelia Earhart's legacy still lives today, reminding young people to keep their eyes on the stars," Clinton told reporters.
The search for Amelia Earhart will resume this summer in the waters off Nikumaroro, an uninhabited island in the southwestern Pacific republic of Kiribati where the legendary pilot might have died as a castaway.
With support from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the US State Department and Discovery Channel which will be documenting the expedition for a television special later this year. The expedition will be carried out by The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery (TIGHAR), which has long been investigating the last, fateful flight taken by Earhart 75 years ago. This new expedition will use high tech underwater equipment to search for pieces of Earhart's plane.
On July 2, the 75th anniversary of Earhart's disappearance, the TIGHAR team will sail from Honolulu aboard the University of Hawaii oceanographic research ship R/V Ka Imikai-O-Kanaloa. Earhart mysteriously vanished while flying over the Pacific Ocean on July 2, 1937 during a record attempt to fly around the world at the equator. -from News Reports, FMI: Sec of State, TIGHAR