Amelia Earhart Flies Solo Across the Atlantic
Ice on the wings and a cracked manifold nearly end the flight, but she lands in an Irish pasture and asks a farmer where she is
Quick facts
- Dates
- May 20-21, 1932
- Route
- Harbor Grace, Newfoundland, to near Londonderry, Northern Ireland
- Duration
- About 14 hours 56 minutes
- Aircraft
- Lockheed Vega 5B
What happened
On May 20, 1932, the fifth anniversary of Lindbergh's crossing, Amelia Earhart took off from Harbor Grace, Newfoundland, alone in a red Lockheed Vega, intending to fly to Paris. Icing on the wings, a leaking fuel tank, and a cracked engine manifold forced her to divert, and after just over 14 hours in the air she landed in a farmer's field near Londonderry, Northern Ireland, reportedly asking the first person she met, where am I. The flight made her the first woman to fly solo and nonstop across the Atlantic and only the second person after Lindbergh to do so.
Why it matters
Earhart's flight proved a woman could complete the same transatlantic crossing that had made Lindbergh a global celebrity five years earlier, and Congress awarded her the Distinguished Flying Cross, a first for a civilian woman. She used the fame that followed to campaign for opportunities for women in aviation for the rest of the decade, before disappearing during a 1937 attempt to fly around the world.
How we know
Earhart's own flight log from the crossing survives in the George Palmer Putnam Collection of Amelia Earhart Papers at Purdue University, which holds the largest archive of her personal papers and effects in the world, donated by her husband in 1940.
Sources
- Purdue University. Amelia Earhart: Purdue aviation legend · Primary source (author-declared)stories.purdue.edu · Cited as a "primary" source (no stronger domain match). · Link is live and its text matches the event's key terms (Jul 2026)
- OUPblog, Oxford University Press. Charting Amelia Earhart's first transatlantic solo flight · General sourceblog.oup.com · Cited as a "reference" source (no stronger domain match). · Link is live and its text matches the event's key terms (Jul 2026)
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