Earhart and navigator Fred Noonan departed Miami heading east on the second, ultimately fatal, round-the-world flight attempt.
On June 1, 1937, Amelia Earhart and navigator Fred Noonan departed Miami, Florida, embarking on the second attempt at her round-the-world flight, this time traveling eastward rather than the westward route of her aborted March attempt. This change in direction was driven partly by shifting seasonal wind and weather patterns.
Over the ensuing weeks, the pair made numerous stops across South America, Africa, the Middle East, India, and Southeast Asia, methodically covering thousands of miles of the planned 29,000-mile equatorial circumnavigation. By June 29, 1937, they had reached Lae, New Guinea, having completed approximately 22,000 of the planned 29,000 miles — leaving the most dangerous and remote segment, across the vast Pacific Ocean, still ahead of them.
The Lae-to-Howland Island leg that remained was widely recognized as the most perilous of the entire journey: a 2,556-mile flight to a tiny, low-lying island with minimal margin for navigational error, made even more difficult without modern satellite navigation.
This departure marks the beginning of the flight that would ultimately claim Earhart's and Noonan's lives, transforming the round-the-world attempt from a triumphant capstone to her career into one of the twentieth century's most enduring mysteries.