Amelia Earhart disappears while circumnavigating the globe in 1937. Amelia Earhart was the first female pilot to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean. Lockheed specifically built a twin-engine monoplane based on her specifications. In 1937, she took off on a Lockheed Electra plane with her navigator, Fred Noonan, and her plane disappeared over the Pacific near Howland Island. Neither Earhart nor any wreckage of the plane was ever found.