USNS Amelia Earhart (T-AKE-6) USNS Amelia Earhart (T-AKE-6) USNS "Amelia Earhart" (T-AKE-6), a "Lewis and Clark"-class dry cargo ship is the only ship of the United States Navy to be named for noted American aviation pioneer and women's rights advocate Amelia Earhart (1897–1937). The contract to build the ship was awarded to National Steel and Shipbuilding Company (NASSCO) of San Diego, California, on 27 January 2004. Her keel was laid down at the end of May 2007 at General Dynamics' NASSCO shipyard. In early 2007, Alex Mandel along with members of the Amelia Earhart Society (AES) and Amelia Earhart Research Association (AERA) successfully petitioned
Amelia Earhart theory. Billings claims that the serial numbers written on the map, , represent: These would be consistent with a Lockheed Electra 10E, such as that flown by Earhart, although they do not contain enough information to identify the wreck in question as NR16020. Pacific Wrecks, a website that documents World War II-era aircraft crash sites, notes that no Electra has been reported lost in or around Papua New Guinea. Gillespie wrote that the distance from Earhart's last known position to New Britain was impossible for the aircraft to fly, requiring more than 13 hours of flight when there were only