SCOTT DETROW, HOST:
Picture it. It's 1937.
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UNIDENTIFIED NEWSCASTER: Amelia Earhart out to circle the Earth at the latitude of the Equator, and that's the Earth's greatest circle.
DETROW: And then she went missing. For nearly 90 years, the whereabouts of Amelia Earhart's plane has remained a mystery, and the mystery continues. The latest expedition that hoped to find Earhart's plane on a small Pacific island has turned up empty handed. As the team headed out, we called up Jacque Pregont, who is on the board of the Amelia Earhart Hangar Museum in Atchison, Kansas, Earhart's hometown. And I started by asking her, what is it? What is it about Amelia Earhart that keeps people so engaged, so interested in what happened to her 90 years after her disappearance?
JACQUE PREGONT: I think she was the first at so many things. She was doing things that a lot of women weren't at that time. And I think that's important today. We all recognize today that it's important that women are allowed to do things that men do, and that's what she always said, women should be able to do anything a man can do. And she spent her life pushing the limits and trying to accomplish great things. And I think it's just such a mystery that everybody wants to know what happened.
DETROW: Yeah. Do you think the mystery is a big part of her ongoing appeal?
PREGONT: Personally, yes, I do. I think the mystique is. Everybody loves a good mystery, and when there's one that can't be solved, it drives everybody crazy, which I think is one of the reasons that you have so many different ideas about what happened. Because if nobody knows, then it could be anything.
DETROW: What do you personally think happened?
PREGONT: I think she ran out of fuel, and her plane is in the ocean someplace.
DETROW: Yeah. I'm curious what the local response was, what the response in the museum was at the news of this latest expedition.
PREGONT: I think for us, it's kind of surprise because we were involved with Bob Ballard when he, along with National Geographic, went on a search a few years ago to Nikumaroro.
DETROW: Yeah, that's the island that most of the searches seem to be focused on, right?
PREGONT: Absolutely. He actually came to our - look at our plane before he went so that he would have a good visual of exactly how the plane looked and spent quite a bit of time measuring the motors and things like that, so that he would know when they went over there. And then he was over there for quite a bit of time. And then he actually came back, and we had an assembly with all of our high school students in the - in Atchison County. And he showed them. He actually talked to his crew, which was still there and said she's not there. She's just not there.
So I think that from our perspective, it's, you know, like, he was there. He had some of the best equipment available in the world, and he didn't think she was there. So we're surprised that they're there. But at the same time, none of us know, for sure, right? We can all say what we think happened. But nobody knows. Until they find that plane, nobody knows, and they will find it.
DETROW: You think so?
PREGONT: Eventually, yes.
DETROW: Yeah.
PREGONT: Technology will just continue to get better until the plane will be found, eventually, absolutely.
DETROW: What's your favorite one fact about Amelia Earhart?
PREGONT: I think my favorite one thing is that she was so determined to follow her dreams, and you didn't dare say no to her because she was more determined than ever then (laughter) to show you that you were wrong.
DETROW: Yeah. That is Jacque Pregont from the Amelia Earhart Hangar Museum. Thank you so much.
PREGONT: Thank you.
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