Purdue helped buy the plane Amelia Earhart flew when she disappeared. Has it been found?

Amelia Earhart set flying records, wrote books, advocated for women's rights and, at the height of her fame, was a Boilermaker — she served as a career counselor and lecturer at Purdue University.

Now an exploration company based in South Carolina might be closer to solving one of the 20th century's most enduring mysteries: whatever happened to Earhart?

This week, Deep Sea Vision announced it had captured sonar images in the Pacific Ocean that "appears to be Earhart's Lockheed 10-E Electra" aircraft, a plane Purdue helped purchase with a fund established specifically for the famous aviator.

Earhart, along with navigator Fred Noonan, disappeared in 1937 on the last leg of her flight along the world's equator, a feat that would've made her the first person to complete such a journey. Researchers believe the pair crashed somewhere in the Pacific Ocean.

Expeditions to find wreckage of the plane as well as human remains have persisted in the 86 years since she vanished. Here's what we know about the most recent news concerning Earhart's lost aircraft and her ties to Indiana.

Was Amelia Earhart's plane found?

Possibly. The company hunting for Earhart's airplane announced on social media its 16-person crew "scanned more than 5,200 square miles of ocean floor" with the Kongsberg Discovery HUGIN 6000, "the most advanced unmanned underwater drone, before finding what could be the legendary American aviator’s Lockheed 10-E Electra."

The state-of-the-art drone "captured a fuzzy sonar image of an object the size and shape of an airplane resting some 5,000 meters underwater within 100 miles of Howland Island," the location where Earhart was headed to refuel on July 2, 1937, when she went missing.

Tony Romeo, Deep Sea Vision's chief executive officer, is "optimistic" that the objects discovered are from Earhart's Lockheed 10-E Electra, he told The Post and Courier but stopped short of saying that his team definitely found her.

More evidence will need to be collected, and that could take time, because the company discovered the image in the drone's data about 90 days into the trip and were unable to turn back to investigate further.

Deep Sea Vision will launch another expedition later in 2024

The company is planning to launch another expedition this year, with a camera, to search for more evidence, such as the airplane’s tail number: NR16020, according to The Post and Courier.

“This is maybe the most exciting thing I’ll ever do in my life,” Romeo told the Wall Street Journal. “I feel like a 10-year-old going on a treasure hunt.”

Who was Amelia Earhart?

Earhart was an American aviator and the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic, as well as the first to fly solo from Hawaii to the U.S. mainland. She also set several speed and altitude records. Born in Kansas on July 24, 1897, Earhart served as a nurse's aid for the Red Cross in Canada during World War I where she spent time watching pilots train. She began taking flying lessons in 1921 at age 24 and purchased an airplane soon afterwards.

Why was Amelia Earhart famous?

Of her many accomplishments, in May 1932, Earhart navigated her Lockheed Vega from Newfoundland to Ireland in 14 hours, 56 minutes to become the first woman to make a solo transatlantic flight. She later became president of the Ninety-Nines, an organization she helped establish to support the advancement of other female pilots.

“Aviation, this young modern giant, exemplifies the possible relationship of women and the creations of science,” Earhart said of her travels.

Defying traditional gender roles, Earhart dared to be different in a world dominated by men. She was 39 years old when she went missing somewhere over the South Pacific, and was declared legally dead after an exhaustive but fruitless search. Numerous theories about her disappearance have included her crash landing not in the ocean, but on a remote, uninhabited atoll.

What are Amelia Earhart's ties to Indiana?

In the final two years before Earhart vanished, she served as a "celebrity-in-residence" at the West Lafayette campus of Purdue University, where women were allowed to enroll in STEM classes. Earhart, despite her fame, ate with the students and lived in the women's dorm at Duhme Hall, according to historian John Norberg.

“She has said she was the first woman in the country to hold the position of career counselor for women at a university,” Norberg wrote on Purdue's website. Earhart gave lectures, conducted conferences and served as an adviser to the university's department of aeronautics.

Earhart encouraged Hoosier women to think 'outside the box'

According to Purdue, Earhart utilized a scientific approach to career counseling. She wrote a questionnaire, asking women to reflect on what work they wanted to pursue in and out of the home.

“She encouraged women to think about the kinds of jobs they were actually interested in, not just what they ‘should’ do,” said Katey Watson, the France A. Córdova Archivist in Purdue University Archives and Special Collections, on Purdue's website. "She wanted them to think outside the box when it came to their careers.”

Earhart made history at the Indy 500

Earhart had many other 'firsts' in Indiana.

The same year she joined the Purdue faculty in 1935, Earhart arrived at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. She was the first woman to receive an official position during the Indy500, writes Norberg. There she served as the first woman referee and demonstrated a parachute training device ahead of the race.

Purdue University helped fund Earhart's dream of flying around the equator

Earhart's goal of being the first person to fly around the world at the equator, setting a record for the furthest-distance flight, was funded in part by Purdue.

The Purdue Research Foundation established a fund supporting Earhart's trip and research plans of studying how long-distance flying affected pilots. In 1936, according to Purdue, Earhart used $40,000 from the fund to acquire her Lockheed Electra 10 airplane. Called the "Flying Laboratory," it was specifically outfitted for long-distance flights.

The aircraft's new technological advancements included radio-telephone systems, newer navigational equipment and mechanisms that de-iced plane wings, according to Purdue.

Had Earhart completed her 1937 journey, the plane would have been returned to the university for future scientific research. Its precise whereabouts, like Earhart herself, remain a mystery — one that researchers might be closer to solving later this year.

John Tufts covers trending news for the Indianapolis Star. Send him a news tip at JTufts@Gannett.com. Clare Mulroy, Jan Biles and Mary Bowerman contributed to this article.

This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Amelia Earhart's might be found. Purdue helped buy it in the 1930s