May 21, 1937: the Lockheed Electra leaves Oakland's North Field
Amelia Earhart had already crossed the Atlantic alone (1932) and the Pacific from Honolulu to Oakland (1935). The 1937 round-the-world attempt was her last big flight. The plane was a Lockheed Electra 10E, twin Pratt & Whitney engines, tweaked by Lockheed engineer Kelly Johnson — yes, the same Kelly Johnson who would build the SR-71 thirty years later. On May 21, 1937 she departed Oakland's North Field, eastbound, bound for the world. Forty-one days and 22,000 miles later, on July 2, Earhart and navigator Fred Noonan disappeared between Lae, New Guinea and Howland Island in the South Pacific. No wreckage was ever conclusively identified. The Oakland Aviation Museum preserves Hangar 7 — her departure hangar — along with her logbook and the last photographs taken on US soil. Pilots who fly out of KOAK still pass within a hundred yards of where the Electra rolled.