Today we talk about Amelia Earhart, the pioneering aviator whose boundary-pushing life and tragic final flight made her an enduring icon of courage and mystery.

In 1932, Earhart shattered records by becoming the first woman to fly solo nonstop across the Atlantic Ocean, cementing her status as a global phenomenon and a champion for women in aviation. But five years later, she set her sights on the ultimate goal: becoming the first woman to pilot an aircraft around the world. On July 2, 1937, near the end of her grueling 29,000-mile journey, Earhart and her navigator Fred Noonan took off from Lae, New Guinea, heading toward a tiny speck of land in the Pacific known as Howland Island - and vanished into history.

In this episode, we are tracking the final hours of flight NR16020. We examine the radio distress signals picked up by the US  ...