It was called “the first lady of the Atlantic”.
Amelia Earhart was the first woman who committed a transatlantic flight (17 Jun 1928), as well as an outstanding Aviator, who had several world records, speaker, journalist and promoter of aviation. Still a mystery the cause of her death: Amelia’s plane disappeared over the ocean. Today put forward several versions of what happened.
Amelia Mary Earhart since childhood, fond of boyish Hobbies: shooting rifles, hunting rats and doing horse riding. At the age of 23 she saw the show and decided that will fly itself. Relatives raised her laugh – women-pilots in those days were very rare. Amelia found in Los Angeles flying instructor, Anita snook, who was pleased with the student, with the exception of the tendency to adventurism: a few times had to keep Amelia from having to fly under the wires of power lines while landing.
In 1922, a 25-year-old Amelia told reporters about his intention to beat in the air all the men’s records – and in October 1922, he set the altitude record among women: 4200 m. In 1928, a wealthy American feminist-aristocrat invited Amelia to lead the crew of the aircraft, commits a transatlantic flight. On 17 June the flight was held successfully, and Amelia Earhart became the first woman to cross the Atlantic on Board the aircraft, although they were ruled by not she, but the male pilot. After landing, she angrily told reporters: “I just drove like a sack of potatoes”. In 1932, she repeated the flight, this time alone.
In the 1930s she became the most famous female pilot in the world, her photo appeared in magazines more often than pictures of movie stars. Amelia took struck her fame to fight for women’s equality and their involvement in male-dominated profession. In 1929, Amelia has formed an international organization of women pilots “99” and became its first President.
But Amelia dreamed of a new record round-the-world flight on the longest route. The flight went wrong from the very beginning: at the start of the Hawaiian Islands, burst tyre on the chassis, and the plane suffered serious damage. But stubborn Earhart refused the idea. By early July, the crew covered 80% of the route, some of the 28 stages of the flight was registered as world records.
July 2, 1927 Amelia Earhart and co-pilot Fred Noonan took off from Papua New Guinea, heading for Howland island in the Central Pacific ocean. But to the destination they never reached. Contact with the plane was suddenly interrupted, and the U.S. Navy launched a search operation, the largest in its history. The search was unsuccessful. In 1939, the pilots were confirmed dead, although information about their fate never appeared.
Put forward several versions of what happened during the last flight Earhart: one of them ran out of fuel and the plane crashed into the ocean; according to another she put him on one of the Islands, but on landing, the crew lost communication, was seriously injured and died; there is even a theory that Earhart and Noonan made an emergency landing, was a prisoner of the Japanese bases in the Pacific, military bases, and then was executed. So far none of the versions has not been proven, and the mystery of the last flight of Earhart remains unsolved.
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Today in the United States Amelia Earhart – a national hero and iconic character of numerous films and books for children. At home pilots, in the city of Atchison, Kansas held annually the festival Airshow, collects up to 50 thousand visitors.
