Pioneers Gallery

Amelia Earhart at the controls of her plane

(FILES)An undated picture taken in the 1930s shows American female aviator Amelia Earhart at the controls of her plane. An aviation museum in the US state of Ohio that believed it was displaying a hair sample from famed flyer Amelia Earhart made an unfortunate discovery, after DNA analysis revealed it to be a piece of thread reported on October 21, 2009. "In a disappointing turn of events," as Cleveland's International Women's Air and Space Museum described it in a statement, the lock of "hair" in their possession since 1986 was revealed as thread only after they put it on display this year. Earhart, one of the greatest female pilots in the history of US aviation, disappeared over the Pacific in 1937 at the age of 60 while attempting a solo flight around the world. The thread remains on display at the museum as part of an Earhart exhibition that is on show until November 15, 2009. AFP PHOTO/FILES / AFP PHOTO / STAFF

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Amelia Earhart, 1928, (1935). Creator: Unknown

Amelia Earhart, 1928, (1935). American aviation pioneer and author Amelia Earhart (born 1897; disappeared 2 July 1937), was the first woman to to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean. Her first transatlantic flight was in 1928 when she accompanied Wilmer Stultz and Louis Gordon. Earhart did not pilot the aircraft but kept the flight log. In 1932 she flew solo from Newfoundland, Canada, to Culmore in Northern Ireland, in a time of 14 hours and 56 minutes. From "The Silver Jubilee Book - The Story of 25 Eventful Years in Pictures". [Odhams Press Ltd., London, 1935]

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