Newly Discovered Recording Unveils Amelia Earhart’s Own Narrative of Historic Atlantic Flight

A recently unearthed recording has brought the voice of Amelia Earhart back to life, nearly a century after it was made.

This remarkable find captures a portion of a speech delivered by the pioneering aviator in London on May 22, 1932. Earhart spoke to an audience shortly after her historic solo nonstop flight across the Atlantic Ocean.

In the recording, Earhart recounts an unprecedented incident during her journey: “Something happened which had never happened before in my 12 years of flying,” she says.

“The altimeter, the instrument required to register altitude – height above ground – failed,” she explains.

“The hand swung around the dial in such a manner that I knew it was out of commission for the rest of the night,” Earhart describes, illustrating the challenges she faced during her monumental flight.

Earhart’s flight across the Atlantic took place just five years before she disappeared on one of the final legs of a circumnavigational flight of the globe.

This final fatal flight departed Lae Airfield in Papua New Guinea and was heading east with a destination of Howland Island, a trip of 2,556 miles. 

Both Earhart and navigator Fred Noonan, 44, were communicating with a nearby Coast Guard ship, USCGC Itasca, before their plane lost contact. 

Amelia Earhart’s voice has been revealed in a newly–discovered recording dating back almost 100 years

The recording was discovered by Amanda Zimmerman, a reference specialist in the Library of Congress’ Rare Book and Special Collections Division, on a tiny 78 rpm record, tucked inside the back cover of Earhart’s memoir, ‘The Fun of It’

The recording was discovered by Amanda Zimmerman, a reference specialist in the Library of Congress’ Rare Book and Special Collections Division, on a tiny 78 rpm record, tucked inside the back cover of Earhart’s memoir, ‘The Fun of It’.

Dating back almost a century, the record was not in good condition. 

‘It was just meant to be ephemeral, kind of like a ring you would get in a box of Cracker Jack,’ Ms Zimmerman said. 

‘It wasn’t really meant to last.’ 

The grooved part on the top was made from a cheap plastic, while the bottom was made from cardboard – meaning placing it on a standard record player could destroy it.

Instead, the researchers turned to the IRENE project – a technique that uses optical imaging to play records,

Amazingly, without ever having to touch the record’s surface, the team were able to bring Earhart’s voice back to life, if a little scratchy and hard to hear. 

You can listen to the full recording here.  

Both Earhart and navigator Fred Noonan, 44, were communicating with a nearby Coast Guard ship, USCGC Itasca, before their plane lost contact in 1937

‘The project did what IRENE does – unlock a tiny moment of recorded history from an obsolete piece of technology and preserve it for the modern world,’ the researchers said. 

Earhart initially won fame in 1932 as the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic. 

However, her attempt to circumnavigate the globe ended in disaster just five years later.

In the last in–flight radio message heard by Itasca, Earhart said: ‘We are on the line 157 337 …. We are running on line north and south.’

The numbers 157 and 337 referred to compass headings – 157° and 337° – and described a line passing through their intended destination, Howland Island.

A popular and relatively straightforward theory is that the plane crashed into the sea when it ran out of fuel and then sank. 

Both Earhart and Noonan were either instantly killed upon impact or were unable to get out and drowned, the theory goes. 

The tragic loss has spawned more fantastical theories, including that they were eaten by crabs and imprisoned by the Japanese. 

It’s generally agreed that the wreckage lies beneath the waves near the planned destination Howland Island or another island around 350 miles southeast called Nikumaroro.