Amelia Earhart was born on July 24, 1897, in Atchison, Kansas. She helped establish the Ninety-Nines, an organization for female pilots, and was a member of the National Woman's Party. In 1932, she received a Distinguished Flying Cross after flying a red Lockheed Vega from Newfoundland to Northern Ireland and becoming the first woman to make a transatlantic flight. On May 25, 1937, at the former Miami Municipal Airport, Earhart announced her intent to fly around the world at the equator. After supervising extensive repairs to her Lockheed Electra by Pan American World Airways mechanics, she took off on June 1, 1937, with her navigator Fred Noonan for Puerto Rico. After numerous stops in South America, Africa, the Indian subcontinent, and Southeast Asia, they arrived at Lae, New Guinea. Her next refueling stop was Howland Island, 2,556 miles away in the South Pacific Ocean, but although July 2, 1937, was a clear day, Earhart and Noonan never landed there. A massive search involving nine U.S. Navy ships and 66 aircraft recovered no remains or evidence of the aircraft.