The Taraia Object expedition made it ashore Nikumaroro on Tuesday, Oct. 13, and the 17-member team immediately began setting up for fieldwork aimed at a satellite-image anomaly that may be what remains of Amelia Earhart’s Lockheed Electra 10-E.
Sirisha Bandla was among the crew members preparing for the ride in after five days of sea travel, part of a joint effort involving the Archaeological Legacy Institute, Purdue Research Foundation and Purdue University. The group had arrived too late on Monday, Oct. 12, to visit the island, so the landing on Tuesday turned a delayed arrival into the start of a search that has been years in the making.
Some crew members moved ahead in smaller transport boats from the Marin Mainiku into the lagoon while others cleared the route to the work site. The traditional path, known as the Gallagher Highway, had grown over, and the team cut through it with machetes and hand chain saws. At least four coconut crabs crossed their path, but they did not stop the operation. Within two hours, the team had reached the Taraia Peninsula, where canopy shelters went up, sandbags were filled and the first phase of terrestrial archaeology began.
By 1 p.m. local time, the expedition was walking the sandspit and looking for artifacts while the maritime archaeology team checked sediment on the lagoon floor. The work wrapped up by 4 p.m. local time, and the team retraced its steps back through the Gallagher Highway to the beach at the head of the blasted channel before the transport boat carried everyone back to the Marin Mainiku through large swells.
What the expedition is chasing is still only a clue. The image anomaly on Nikumaroro has not been confirmed as linked to Earhart’s plane, and that is the part that keeps the search open even as the crew is already on the ground. The Lockheed Electra 10-E disappeared in July 1937, and the next test of the theory comes Wednesday, Oct. 14, when fieldwork is scheduled to continue on an island that has now seen the team, the equipment and the first day of excavation prep.
