Amelia Earhart flies from Hawaii to California
In the first flight of its kind American aviatrix Amelia Earhart departs Wheeler Field in Honolulu Hawaii on a solo flight to North America.Hawaiian commercial interests offered a 10000 award to whoever accomplished the flight first.The next day after traveling 2400 miles in 18 hours she safely landed at Oakland Airport in Oakland California.On May 21 1932 exactly five years after American aviator Charles Lindbergh became the first person to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean Earhart became the first woman to repeat the feat when she landed her plane in Londonderry Ireland.
However unlike Lindbergh when he made his historic flight Earhart was already well known to the public before her solo transatlantic flight.In 1928 as a member of a three-member crew she had become the first woman to cross the Atlantic in an aircraft.Although her only function during the crossing was to keep the planes log the event won her national fame and Americans were enamored with the modest and daring young pilot.
For her solo transatlantic crossing in 1932 she was awarded a Distinguished Flying Cross by the U.S.Congress.Two years after her Hawaii to California flight she attempted with co-pilot Frederick J.Noonan to fly around the world but her plane was lost on July 2 1937 somewhere between New Guinea and Howland Island in the South Pacific.
Radio operators picked up a signal that she was low on fuelthe last trace the world would ever know of Amelia Earhart.
