Trump orders release of remaining documents on Amelia Earhart as Purdue University expedition takes flight

President Donald Trump took a sudden interest Friday in the decades-old mystery surrounding pilot Amelia Earhart’s disappearance, ordering the release of any classified documents. Trump’s interest comes as another effort by Purdue University to learn more takes off.

It is unclear what, if any, files remain unsealed. Much of the information about what happened to Earhart and her copilot 88 years ago is already public.

“There's nothing still classified by the U.S. government on Amelia Earhart,” Ric Gillespie, an aviation historian, told the Associated Press.

Gillespie is the executive director of the International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery and he studied Earhart for decades.

He doubts that there is more information on the famed aviator to release, citing previous document dumps by the FBI and the National Archives.

But the full story is still incomplete.

An upcoming expedition led by Purdue researchers may finally answer the biggest remaining question about her disappearance: Did her plane land near a South Pacific island, marooning Earhart and co-pilot Fred Noonan?

Earhart was working at Purdue when she embarked on her final, around-the-world flight attempt. The university hired her as a visiting aeronautical engineering faculty member and women’s career counselor in 1935.

Purdue established the Amelia Earhart Fund for Aeronautical Research, which sponsored her mission to fly around the world and funded the construction of her Lockheed Electra 10E airplane.

In his social media post about classified documents, Trump said Earhart was a wide-ranging pioneer.

“The first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean, and achieved many other aviation firsts,” Trump wrote. 

Purdue University General Counsel and VP Steve Schultz echoed that sentiment in a recent interview with WFYI.  He said her accomplishments go beyond her milestones in flight.

“A pioneer in women’s rights, advocate for women being in careers outside the home and certainly a pioneer in aviation,” Schultz said.

Schultz will join the expedition this fall to Nikumaroro, a small island in the Pacific Ocean. Researchers have uncovered new satellite evidence that may help them find the aircraft and solve the mystery.

Theories have abounded over the years. Some have veered into the absurd, including alien abduction or that Earhart assumed an alias and lived in New Jersey. Other theories speculate she and Noonan were executed by Japan or died as castaways on an island.

Available evidence points to the latter explanation. Research suggests she landed on Nikumaroro after her disappearance in 1937 and evidence includes satellite imagery, radio transmissions, and artifacts recovered from the island.

Purdue University has a collection of Earhart documents that includes photos, letters, and other artifacts once owned by the pioneering aviator.