Amelia Earhart's birthday marked by Google doodle

A doodle featured on the search engine Google’s home page today plays tribute to Amelia Earhart. July 24 marks Amelia Earhart’s 114th birthday and all of this time on mystery still surrounds the brave aviator’s disappearance.

During her lifetime, Earhart broke many records and wrote many books about her life as an aviation pioneer. Earhart’s final flight would be in 1937 as she attempted to circumnavigate the globe. Her plane disappeared as she flew over the Pacific Ocean and she was officially declared dead two years after her disappearance.

As Earhart’s plane approached her Howland Island destination, she reported that the gas was running low. Just an hour after her final radio message, the search for Earhart got underway in earnest. The Navy and Coast Guard searched the land and sea for her. Phoenix Island and Gardener Island were searched and it as thought possible that Earhart survived the crash as there were signs that someone had lived there.

The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery recently carried out an expedition called Niku VII. The expedition hoped to gather more glues about Earhart’s disappearance and perhaps recover her remains the aeroplane - named the Earhart Electra - which she was on when she took her final journey.

Details of what they team discovered during the expedition will be broadcast in a documentary on the Discovery Channel in August.

More information on the work of the International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery - and their search for Amelia Earhart - is available from their website.