During the final, treacherous leg of their 1937 attempt to circumnavigate the globe, pioneering aviator Amelia Earhart and navigator Fred Noonan were in radio communication with a U.S. Coast Guard cutter waiting at their destination, the remote Howland Island. Their last transmissions indicated they were critically low on fuel and, despite being in the immediate vicinity, were unable to visually locate the tiny landmass. Following these final messages, the Lockheed Electra 10E vanished over the Pacific Ocean. The ensuing search effort was the most extensive in naval history at the time, but it failed to uncover any confirmed wreckage of the plane or its two occupants, leaving their precise fate a complete enigma.