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RESEARCHERS ON THE trail of missing 1930s aviatrix Amelia Earhart say they are increasingly convinced that aluminum debris found on a South Pacific beach came from her lost airplane.
Earhart, the first woman to fly across the Atlantic solo, was attempting to circumnavigate the world in 1937, flying close to the equator, when she and navigator Fred Noonan vanished without a trace. She was 39 at the time.
What happened to the duo and their twin-engine aircraft has remained one of aviation’s enduring mysteries.
The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery (TIGHAR) said the debris bolsters the possibility that a sonar blip off Nikumaroro atoll in Kiribati is the fuselage of her ill-starred Lockheed Electra.
In a statement, it said the chunk of aluminum, found in 1991, strongly resembles a 19-by-23 inch (48-by-58 centimeter) patch installed in place of a window on the Electra during a stopover in Florida earlier during the flight.
The strong possibility that Artifact 2-2-V-1 is the ‘Miami Patch’ means that the many fractures, tears, dents and gouges evident on the metal may be important clues to the fate – and resting place – of the aircraft itself.
It also reinforces the possibility that an “unusual feature” seen in sonar images taken by a TIGHAR expedition to the atoll in 2012 might be Earhart’s lost plane, resting 600 feet (200 meters) beneath the sea.
‘Waiting for a rescue that never arrived’
One theory, the researchers said, assumes that the patch was removed after Earhart and Noonan, possibly out of fuel, crash-landed on a reef at Nikumaroro – known at the time as Gardner Island – and sent out radio messages for at least five days.
Rising tides and surf would have then washed the aircraft into the sea, leaving the two aviators stranded, waiting for a rescue that never arrived.
Pennsylvania-based TIGHAR said it plans to return to Nikumaroro in June 2015 with a Fiji-based research vessel for a sixth expedition that will send a remote-operated underwater vehicle to investigate the unexplained sonar anomaly. It added:
During the 24-day expedition, divers will search for other wreckage at shallower depths, and an onshore search team will seek to identify objects detected in historical photographs that may be relics of an initial survival camp.
Earlier this year, another Amelia Earhart, a 31-year-old US broadcast journalist, honored her namesake by circumnavigating the world in a high-performance Pilatus turboprop.
She claims to be the youngest woman ever to do so in a single-engine aircraft.
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Let’s hope they’re both found safe and sound.
Yes, living with Tom Hanks and Wilson on an island……..
Sometimes if you have nothing nice to say you just have to say nothing.. It’s not that hard
@pontius.. GreenMonkeys comment was funny but not gagsy’s..
Paperboy, don’t be that guy.
I know it’s been nearly 80 years but I still think there should be some level of respect.. Is that wrong? A member of my family went missing at sea 20 years ago and if I found out today that somebody made a comment like that about it I wouldn’t be happy about it!
Dear Paperboy2, it is a source of great personal regret that you have not been amused and I thank you for implicity pointing out that my crass comment about people who (probably?) died as recently as 77 years ago was not as you say “nice”.
Any offence caused to the parents of the deceased is also regretted.
D**khead!!
do you know the Five Lamps?
I do sir. It’s where I meet your mother on the weekends!
What about it?
ah jaysus me poor mudder – no call for that now.
Don’t worry she’s in great hands.. Lovely woman your mother is!
She loves it where the lamps don’t shine but don’t tell her I said that!
Don’t worry, I can’t tell her…..
Actually, I’ll have you know that they are living with the Swiss family Robinson. Tom Hanks was rescued…..dont you recall, …silly.
What an amazing piece of the puzzle if it is part of her plane that they have found and what a discovery it would be if the rest of the remaining of the plane was discovered.
Any time I see that TIGHAR are involved in a search I reach for a hefty pinch of salt. They’ve announced “proof” of finding Earhart’s plane/bone/freckle cream bottle (yes, really) before only for said evidence to not stand up to outside scrutiny. The “bone”, incidently, turned out to be a fragment of turtle shell.
Amazing that they can find debris from a small plane lost 77 years ago, yet there’s still zero debris found from a large plane lost only recently, maybe get these guys to go find flight MH370?
Ya I know it makes no sense, I mean it took them only 77 years to find the debris for this plane, I mean the MH370 has gone missing a whole 7 months!!!
A very brave woman fuelled by enthusiasm and ambition who did not live to see modern advances in aviation.
Banga what are u ranting on about now
No sense of humor on here at times , every comment has to be pc…ask me ar.e. As Jim royale would say
It would be nice to find the plane just as a part of our history. It would be good too of course to find out what actually happened to both of them. Seems incredible how they would set off in something so basic by today’s standards on just a huge journey. Bravery or recklessness? Probably a bit of both
It would be fantastic if they did find the wreckage as it’s an important part of our flight history. At least if they crash landed and survived a while then that’s better than crash landing on water where they wild have had little or no chance .
If the wreckage is found then they should search the nearby atoll as that will be where thee resins lay .
I would what she would think of budget airlines like Ryanair
I would what you would think of languages….like English.
Pi## off you ####£££ dickhe@h grammar Nazi.
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