Born in 1897, Amelia Earhart was one of the American aviation pioneers and in 1935 she became the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic.

Earhart and her navigator, Fred Noonan, have disappeared on July 2 1937 over the central Pacific Ocean during an attempt to make a round-the-world flight and the official version is that their plane run out of fuel and crashed into the sea.

But a 16-day search-and-rescue US navy expedition failed to locate any remains of Earhart and her navigator which lead to numerous theories regarding their end.

TIGHAR’s expedition is just another attempt to solve the mystery. The 15-members group will head to uninhabited atoll of Nikumaroro, about 1,800 miles south of Hawaii, where they will conduct an extensive 17-days search for human bones, aircraft parts and any other evidence.

"The public wants it solved. That's why everybody on the street today, 70 years later, knows the name Amelia Earhart," said TIGHAR founder and executive director Ric Gillespie. "She is America's favorite missing person.

"Most skeptics are not really familiar with the evidence that we've found," he continued, "and they usually have a vested interest in the other theories -- that they crashed at sea or were captured by the Japanese."

Archaeological operations on Nikumaroro will focus on the Seven Site – the “castaways’ campsite” location TIGHAR began excavating in 2001.