Honolulu, July 18. – Amelia Earhart, symbol of woman's efficiency in the air, and Frederick J. Noonan, her navigator in a flight around the world, were officially given up for dead to-day.
There no longer seemed to naval officials any doubt but that Miss Earhart and Noonan had drowned somewhere between new Guinea and Howland Island after losing their way on an all-ocean hop of their around-the-world flight.
"It is useless to continue the search," [rear Admiral Orin] Murfin said. The search was abandoned while a move to forbid all stunt flights was growing in Washington.
Miss Earhart . . . was one of the most colourful of the many personalities attracted into aviation from obscure positions by the flight of Col. Charles A. Lindbergh from New York to Paris in 1927.
WTF, they were actually searching till now?