Amelia Mary Earhart (/'??rh??rt/ AIR-hart; July 24, 1897; disappeared July 2, 1937; declared dead January 5, 1939) was an American aviation pioneer and writer. Earhart was the first female aviator to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean.

The most famous female pilot to go missing is Amelia Earhart, who disappeared on July 2, 1937, while attempting to become the first woman to fly around the world. Earhart and her navigator, Fred Noonan, vanished over the central Pacific Ocean near Howland Island during the most challenging leg of their 27,000-mile journey. Flying a twin-engine Lockheed Electra 10E, they lost radio contact with the U.S. Coast Guard cutter Itasca, which was stationed nearby to guide them. Despite an unprecedented and massive search effort by the U.S. Navy and Coast Guard, no trace of the plane or its occupants was found. Her disappearance remains one of the greatest unsolved mysteries of the 20th century, sparking numerous theories ranging from a simple "crash and sink" scenario to the idea that they landed on a remote atoll like Nikumaroro or were captured by Japanese forces. Earhart's legacy as a pioneer for women in aviation and a record-breaker—having previously been the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic—continues to inspire generations of aviators and researchers to this day.