USNS Amelia Earhart (T-AKE-6) 124 civil service mariners and, at times, will include an additional complement of military personnel and carry two helicopters. 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,
Amelia Earhart different version of the Japanese capture hypothesis is not that the Japanese captured Earhart, but rather that they shot down her plane. Henri Keyzer-Andre, a former Pan Am pilot, propounded this view in his 1993 book "Age Of Heroes: Incredible Adventures of a Pan Am Pilot and his Greatest Triumph, Unravelling the Mystery of Amelia Earhart". Since the end of World War II, a location on Tinian, which is five miles (8 km) southwest of Saipan, had been rumored to be the grave of the two aviators. In 2004, an archaeological dig at the site failed to turn up any