Search for Amelia Earhart plane to resume

Seventy-five years after Amelia Earhart disappeared while attempting to circumnavigate the world, the search for the wreckage of her twin-engine Lockheed Electra will resume this summer.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton applauded the effort yesterday in a speech to, among others, the people who will conduct the search off Nikumaroro, an uninhabited island in the southwestern Pacific where Earhart might have died. "Even if you do not find what you seek, there is great honor and possibility in the search itself," Clinton said.

Earhart, the first female to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean and nonstop, solo, across the United States, disappeared on July 2, 1937, during an attempt to fly around the globe at the equator.

The search will be conducted by The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery, which has been investigating Earhart's final flight, and theorizes that she and navigator Fred Noonan might have died as castaways on then-Gardner Island. The disappearance sparked a multimillion-dollar search but nothing turned up. Robert Ballard, the oceanographer who discovered the Titanic and the Bismarck wreckages, is advising on the new effort. "If you ever want a case of finding a needle in a haystack, this is at the top of the list," he said. The expedition will begin in July and will be filmed by the Discovery Channel, which is helping to pay for its cost.

The State Department helped clear the way for the expedition because the island is now part of the Republic of Kiribati.