In 1907, when Amelia Earhart is nine years old, growing up on a Kansas farm, she is an intelligent and precocious child. She builds a play aircraft with her sister "Pidge." Later, as America enters
World War I in 1917, Amelia, now a college student working in a doctor's office, decides to join the war effort and become a nurse. One night on the roof of her building, while on break with a coworker, she sees an aircraft, rekindling her childhood interest in aviation. In 1921, a young Earhart has her first training flight with female flight instructor
Neta Snook. That same year, she buys her first aircraft, a
Kinner "Canary," with the blessing of her father, who has become a chronic alcoholic. In 1924, she and her mother embark on a cross-country road trip from Los Angeles to Boston in an open
roadster, engaging in arguments along the way. In Boston, Earhart has an on-and-off relationship with a young man and later works in a children's orphanage, using whatever little money she saves to subsidize her passion for flying. In 1928, while employed at the orphanage, Earhart is invited to become the first woman ever to fly the Atlantic in a fixed-wing aircraft, the Fokker "Friendship." However, she flies as a passenger, with pilot Wilmer Stultz and copilot Lou Gordon (
Steve Kanaly) at the controls. That same year, she pilots her
Avro Avian biplane in a coast-to-coast, stop-and-go flight, where some southern locals recognize her from the transatlantic Friendship flight. Not satisfied with having been a passenger on the Friendship flight, Earhart yearns to fly the Atlantic again as the first solo female aviator to do so. She marries George Putnam in a quasi arranged or open-marriage. This marriage to wealthy Putnam enables her to buy an expensive high performance red Lockheed Vega with which she plans the solo Atlantic flight. Earhart decides to leave Newfoundland on May 20, 1932, the fifth anniversary of Charles Lindbergh's 1927 flight. Her marriage to media tycoon
George Palmer Putnam, who had been her publicist since the Friendship flight, and a series of record-breaking flights propel her to international fame as a long-distance flyer. Despite her open and frequently strained relationship with Putnam, she develops a close bond with his son David. With help from a close friend and adviser,
Paul Mantz, Earhart plans her longest flight ever—a round-the-world attempt in 1937. The disappearance of Earhart and her navigator
Fred Noonan during the last stage of the flight leads to a massive but fruitless search effort, solidifying Earhart as an aviation icon. ==Cast==