Amelia Earhart’s story
has attracted this blogger’s attention for more than fifty years. She was a
pioneer aviator and a role model for many. Along the way, she served as a nurse
for returning veterans who suffered serious wounds during World War I and wrote
both poetry and books about her career. She was the first woman to be a
passenger on a flight across the Atlantic Ocean and then soloed the same ocean
a few years later. She was the first pilot of either gender to solo from Hawaii
to California.
Her story is remarkable.
It is probably unfair to Earhart that she is best remembered for disappearing
in July of 1937 while attempting to fly around the world at approximately the
equator. Earhart and navigator Fred Noonan were trying to land on tiny Howland
Island to refuel and then continue to Hawaii. From there they were to fly home
to California.
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| Earhart speaking at Penn Station in 1929. |
Through the years there
have been some legitimate attempts to determine what happened to Earhart and
Noonan. There have also been some publicity seekers who use the disappearance
for their own purposes. What there has never been is concrete evidence
indicating how the final flight ended. That is not going to change here,
unfortunately. But below is some of what is known and inarguable about the
disappearance of Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan. After that is my guess.
1. Earhart
originally planned to fly westward around the world. The first leg covered the
distance from California to Hawaii. The second leg would have taken Earhart and
a crew of three men to Howland. The Hawaii-Howland distance is shorter than the
New Guinea-Howland flight that Earhart and Noonan attempted. A takeoff accident
wrecked Earhart’s Lockheed Electra 10-E in Hawaii. By the time the plane could
be shipped to California and repaired, the time of year had changed and it was
better to fly easterly.
2. Howland
Island is a tiny speck of a thing in the vast Pacific. It was hard to find in
1937 and hard to see from the air. It was also not at the spot Noonan was
trying to navigate the fliers toward. Earhart’s chart coordinates were off by
about five miles. They flew into the rising morning sun, making vision
difficult, toward an empty spot of water. Howland was probably just slightly
beyond sight when the Electra arrived in the area.
3. Howland
Island is slightly south and east of where Earhart and Noonan thought it was.
4. The
estimated distance from the Electra’s takeoff point at Lae, New Guinea to the
inaccurate position of Howland was roughly 2,550 miles. The actual distance was
roughly the same.
5. Noonan’s
navigating got them very close. Earhart’s radio signals were strength five,
according to the radio operators aboard the Coast Guard cutter Itasca,
which was anchored at Howland to support the Earhart/Noonan flight. Earhart’s
second-to-last transmission was so strong that it slightly over modulated.
Hearing it, some sailors rushed out of the radio room to look for the plane as
it flew. It was very close to Howland Island at that time. Earhart’s final
confirmed transmission was also strength five but did not over modulate,
indicating that she was still close but as so close as she had been before.
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A Lockheed Electra 10-A, the same model flown by Earhart and Noonan
during their 1937 flight. At the Pima County Air Museum in Arizona. This
is not Earhart's plane, just the same type of plane.
|
6. As
the skies were clear to the east, west and south at that time but cloudy to the
north, it is possible to suppose that the Electra was north of Howland at that
time. Had Earhart and Noonan been south of Howland, they might have seen Baker
Island. Baker is just 42 miles from Howland. Had they seen Baker, the fliers
probably would have been able to guess where they were.
7. At
the time of her final verified transmission, Earhart was concerned about running
out of fuel. She said so herself.
8. Nikumaroro
Island, formerly Gardner Island, is roughly four hundred miles from Howland. It
strains credible thought to suppose that a plane dangerously low on fuel near
Howland Island could fly the distance to the island now known as Nikumaroro.
9. Gardner
Island, as it was known in 1937, was and is part of the Phoenix Island chain.
When the United States Navy conducted its long and expensive search for Earhart
and Noonan, it sent planes to fly over Gardner. No credible evidence has ever
been uncovered that Earhart and Noonan flew to and then died on Gardner.
10. Books have been written about reports from
residents of Saipan Island that a white woman and man were seen on Saipan in
the late 1930s. Saipan was under Japanese control at that time. It has never
been proved one way or another whether Earhart and Noonan died on Saipan.
11. Earhart and Noonan arrived in the Howland area
shortly after sunup. It might have been easier to see the tiny island had they
arrived a little later in the day, but the arrival time was determined by the
takeoff time. The plane was heavily loaded with fuel and needed favorable
conditions to get off the ground at Lae and those conditions were at about 10
A.M., July 2, 1937. That take off time ay Lae forced the arrival time at
Howland.
12. One very obvious point: Today’s navigation
methods are much more precise than those Noonan had to use in 1937.
The above is what is known
about the flight. What can we deduce from all of that?
First, given the strength
of her final radio signals, students of the mystery can work with the
assumption that the Electra could not have flown to Saipan. The same can
be deduced for Gardner Island. Both Saipan and Gardner are too distant for a
plane flying in the skies near Howland and very low on fuel to reach.
Next, Earhart was
probably north of Howland when she made her final transmissions and she was
probably heading away from her intended destination at the time of her last
one. Your Loyal Blogger also suspects, without any proof, that the Electra was
also a little bit east of their target. It has been suggested that at the time
of her final transmission, Earhart was flying a search pattern, but we can’t
know that for sure.
Your Loyal Blogger
postulates that Earhart’s plane would have arrived safely at Howland had it
followed the original flight plan and flown westward. It would have been a
shorter flight from Honolulu to Howland, with a larger and fresher crew. The
flight from Howland to Lae, assuming the heavily-laden Electra was able to get
off the runway at Howland, would not have been as stressful as going from Lae
to Howland. New Guinea would have been a lot easier to find than tiny Howland,
too. The accident at Honolulu played a large role in the disappearance.
The story that Earhart
and Noonan were somehow captured by a Japanese fishing vessel and then
transported to Saipan is impossible to ignore. Most versions of the story have
Noonan beheaded on the island and Earhart succumbing to dysentery sometime
later. Virtually every theory concerning the fate of the flight could
end with the pair on Saipan. They could have crashed somewhere north of
Howland, been plucked from the sea by any sort of boat and then hustled to
Saipan. They could have miraculously re-fueled in mid-air and flown on to
Gardner and crash landed there, only to be captured and taken to Saipan.
What do these facts tell
us? What supposition makes the most sense? What happened to Amelia Earhart and
Fred Noonan?
The key for this observer
is the strength of Earhart’s radio signals. That is the most important piece of
evidence. She was very close to Howland at the end of her flight. The clouds
reported by the Itasca to be north of the island prohibited Earhart from
using a higher altitude to gain vision distance. She and Noonan couldn’t see
far enough and the glare from the morning sun didn’t help, either. So they got
close but not close enough to see Howland.
Earhart had to crash land
the plane on the ocean surface and here was another problem. They needed every
ounce of aviation gasoline they could carry in order to make it to Howland and
that meant not bringing a life raft. If Earhart and Noonan were rescued from
the sea by anyone, it had to happen immediately after the Electra exhausted its
fuel and Earhart put the plane in the drink. YLB does not believe that such a
rescue happened. The fliers succumbed to the waves.
Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan
ran out of fuel before they could locate Howland Island and they crashed into
the Pacific. They went down somewhere north of Howland.
Thanks for reading.
