#fly with amelia
Amelia Rose Earhart and Shane Jordan land in Oakland, California July 11. (Jane Tyska, Oakland Tribune-Bay Area News Group/AP)
Growing up, Amelia Rose Earhart hated her name. It felt too big, too legendary, too lofty for a young girl such as herself. Her namesake, Amelia Mary Earhart set multiple records and was on her way to becoming the first woman to circumnavigate the globe by plane when she disappeared over the Pacific Ocean in 1937 with her navigator, Frederick Noonan.
Yesterday, July 11, Amelia Rose Earhart carried out Amelia Mary’s plan. Pictured above landing in Oakland, California, she completed the trip with her good friend, Shane Jordan. “I’ve been waiting 77 years for this. After all these years, I never thought that I would see the day,” said Elwood Ballard, 84. Ballard watched Amelia Mary’s 1937 departure and Amelia Rose’s 2014 landing.
“Amelia believed that ‘adventure is worthwhile in itself,’ and it is that type of attitude that spurs us to seek the unknown, push our limits and fly outside the lines,” Amelia Rose says on her website.
“Please know I am well aware of the hazards,” wrote Amelia Mary in a letter to her husband. “I want to do it because I want to do it. Women must try to do things as men have tried. When they fail their failure must be but a challenge to others.”
Amelia Rose was able to document her travels in ways Amelia Mary would have never dreamed of. Posts with the hashtag #flywithamelia allowed her to connect with people on the ground as she flew. She also live-streamed from her plane with Jordan.
Amelia Rose’s successful landing rouses old desires to discover what happened to Amelia Mary. According to the Earhart Project, she and navigator Fred Noonan lived for “a time as castaways on the waterless atoll [Gardner Island], relying on rain squalls for drinking water. They caught and cooked small fish, seabirds, turtles and clams. Amelia died at a makeshift campsite on the island’s southeast end. Noonan’s fate is unknown.”
This fall, the group is embarking on underwater and onshore search operations to test their theory.
