Amelia Earhart namesake to re-create famed pilot's final flight

FILE: In this undated photo, Amelia Earhart, the first woman to cross the Atlantic Ocean by plane sits on top of a plane.
(AP)

Amelia Rose Earhart, a namesake and distant relative of the famed aviator plans to re-create Earhart's attempted flight around the world next summer.

Earhart, an anchor for KUSA-TV in Denver, made the announcement Wednesday at an experimental aircraft show in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, the station reported.

"One year from now I will be completing, symbolically completing, and recreating Amelia Earhart's historic flight around the world. It's a dream that I've had since I was about 18 years old," Earhart said.

Mystery has surrounded Amelia Earhart's fate since her plane went missing in 1937 in the South Pacific during her quest to become the first woman to fly around the world.

She will be flying with Patrick Carter, a businessman and entrepreneur who has worked as a corporate charter pilot and as a test pilot for Cessna Aircraft, USA Today reported.

Earhart told the newspaper she learned that she and Amelia Earhart shared "a common ancestry" after tracing her roots to the early 1700s.

She said the trip will be an opportunity to spend countless hours in a place where feels the most fulfilled and to raise money for a foundation she established that aims to finance flight training for young women in Denver.

"The feeling I have when I get up there in the airplane is unlike anything else," Earhart said.