During the next leg to the tiny Howland Island in the Pacific Ocean, Earhart got into trouble despite being in intermittent contact with a US Coast Guard ship, the Itasca. Her last message, when running out of fuel and desperately trying to find land, was, "We are running north and south." A colossal search-and-rescue operation was immediately launched, but it failed to find any sign of Earhart, Noonan or the plane.

She was officially declared dead in January 1939. It seems likely that she crashed into the sea, but it has been suggested that she did make it to land, perhaps Nikumaroro Island in modern-day Kiribati. A more outlandish theory claims that she was captured by the Japanese.

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