Lae Airfield crane above the aircraft. The Lae airport is probably best remembered for being the point of departure in July 1937 for Amelia Earhart and navigator Fred Noonan on their flight to Howland Island. Earhart's plane disappeared near Howland Island some 19 hours after departing Lae airport. Lae Airfield Lae Airfield is a former World War II airfield and later, civilian airport located at Lae, Morobe Province, Papua New Guinea. The airport was closed in the 1980s, in favour of Lae Nadzab Airport, which was able to accommodate larger jet aircraft. The airport was known as Lae Drome or Lae Aerodrome
Fred Noonan one month later, they tried starting again, this time leaving California in the opposite (eastward) direction. Earhart characterized the pace of their 40-day, eastward trip from Burbank to New Guinea as "leisurely". After completing about 22,000 miles (35,000 km) of the journey, they took off from Lae on July 2, 1937, and headed for Howland Island, a tiny sliver of land in the Pacific Ocean, barely 2,000 meters long. Their plan for the 18-hour-long flight was to reach the vicinity of Howland using Noonan's celestial navigation abilities and then find Howland by using radio signals transmitted by the U.S. Coast