If you are all interested about aviation history, this year marks the 75th anniversary of Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan vanishing into the aviation history books when they failed to complete their around the world flight.
TIGHAR, The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery, is hosting a three-day, information-packed symposium in Washington, DC. that will go over both its theory of what happened to the famous pair, alternate theories, and TIGHAR’s planned trip this summer that may resolve this historical mystery once and for all. Information on the topics and registration is here: http://www.earhartsearch75.com/program.html.
Personaly I think that Amelia and Noonan went down in the Gardner Islands south of Howland where the Itasca was and received weak radio signals from Amelia. I belive this is where they may have crash landed and eventually passed. We will never know what really happened.
Earhart was incredibly brave, however she was a mediocre pilot at best. I don’t think she could have crash-landed the L-10E due to her lack of ability. Furthermore, they did not have shoulder harnesses, just lap belts.
Consequently, when they ran out of fuel and hit the water, they probably died on impact and the Electra sank.
That is the concensus in most of the info out there but I think it may be due to the machismo image of the day of a female doing a guy thing. The running out of fuel and ditching in the ocean is also a very likely scenario.
AEs more than a dozen aviation records that still stand today speak well of her skills as a pilot. Paul Mantz, her technical advisor on the “around the world flight” did think she needed more twin engine time after she ground looped the Electra in Hawii, on the first attemt to fly around the world at the equater. She did get more training before the second, and fatal, attempt. She did, or Noonan did, need more radio training. That having been said, they made a fatal error not getting more radio training AND leaving the trailing antenna off at Lae to save weight. Did they get lost, or were they shot down by the Japanese. Keep in mind that they dissapeared a few day before Japan invaded China (July of 1937), and they flew close to the Japanese mandated islands that the Japanese illegally fortified and would not want the U.S. to know about. TheTIGHAR expeditions are commendable, but that island was inhabited by natives after the war for the gathering of guana (bird poop for fertilizer. The island also had missionaries along with the natives to preach to them and “get their minds right”. Along with the missionaries was their wives and daughters who could have left behind womens shoes and cosmetic jars. Any evidence found to date, that AE and Noonan were on the island, is purely circumstancial and conjecture. Until a part of the Electra with a identifying number is found that is all we have. If the female bones that were removed in the late 1940s are ever found and DNA tested against AE’s mother, or sister, we could also have conclusive evidence. The discovery of an object positively identified as AEs or Noonans would also be conclusive. As for the landing, those islands have very long sandy beaches when the tide is out and a landing could easily be made, wheels down. A water landing could also be safely made if the seas are not rough, or a lagoon is long enough. Keep in mind that during the war (WWII) there were aircraft of numerous nations in the area and aircraft parts could easily be washed up on any of those islands. I do not know about that specific island, but on many of the islands the U.S. and its alies had observers placed to watch shipping movements, or Japanese installations. Hopefully we will know one day what happened to AE and Fred Noonan. Best wishes to TIGHAR and thanks to them for their commitment to this historic issue.
When I was the German Naval Adjutant tot he Japanese Empire in the late '30’s I heard a lot of scuttlebut while participating on a cruise aboard the Zuiho regarding this mystery…
What I heard was quite disturbing…It seems that several type O fighters were launched as a standing CAP and on one such occasion interecpted a twin-engined a/c of silver color within thirty miles of the carrier.
Orders were issued from the bridge to escort the aircraft away from the carrier, and if it would not comply to shoot it down. I was told that it and one of the fighters collided shortly after and both fell into the sea…