Hillary Clinton Aids the Search for Amelia Earhart

After 75 years, the search for Amelia Earhart continues.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton met with historians and researchers at the International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery at an event Tuesday celebrating Earhart’s legacy.

Marking the 75th anniversary of her flight, the group is kicking off a search on the island of Nikumaroro for wreckage of Earhart’s Lockheed Electra plane, the Associated Press reported. Earhart and her navigator Fred Noonan disappeared on July 2, 1937, during a flight from New Guinea to Howland Island, a part of her attempt to become the first woman to fly around the world.

According to a senior U.S. official, a recent photograph of the island reveals what could be a strut and wheel of an airplane in the water. Underwater robotic submarines and mapping equipment will be brought to aid the group in their search. Previous expeditions recovered artifacts from the island that could have belonged to Earhart and Noonan.

“Amelia Earhart may have been an unlikely heroine for a nation down on its luck, but she embodied the spirit of an America coming of age and increasingly confident, ready to lead in a quite uncertain and dangerous world. She gave people hope and she inspired them to dream bigger and bolder,” Clinton said during her remarks. “When she took off on that historic journey, she carried the aspirations of our entire country with her.”

The State Department supported Earhart in her missions, getting her flight clearances in foreign countries she stayed during her long journeys.