Print

[John Ousterhout]

Jeff, I think you came close to answering your own question - the Itasca didn't have any better 'substantial reasons' to base their search on.  The captain looked around, could not imagine AE missing the island/ship/smoke unless her view was obscured by clouds, so he headed towards the only heavily clouded area he could see.  He may have considered Gary's point about the LOP as well, which would give him two reasons to look in that direction, and no good reasons to look in any other direction.
Here we are, 75 years later, and still trying to guess where to search based on 'would have, should have' reasoning.

[JNev]

I'm with Gary on this one.

I certainly agree - already made same point.

I might add, before someone brings it up, that because Itasca went NNW and AE and FN did not see it does not mean they were not NW of Howland. Tiny ship on a big ocean with WX. It was interesting to read the report from Colorado skipper. My opinion, stated enough so agree or disagree as you wish.

I wish I had more time to browse. That excerpt from Colorado is very useful to understand conditions better. Unfortunately back at the grindstone and no time for fun.

The world still wonders with baited breath.

JB

What your comment about "I might add..." makes me realize is that my playful jab at Gary about the search pattern, etc. put me into relative 'thread drift' - unintended.

So, what's to disagree with?  As to the topic, I well agree with the rationale we seem to have about why Thompson did as he did.  I don't see how I'd do differently if in his shoes, by all I can understand.

But woe to any who think they have a lock on where the bird was, or wasn't, or could not be.  We will always be stuck with so much that is ambiguous in the whole big picture.  They could have slipped right by the ship within a few miles, hit the LOP, done a cursory north-north-west, then reversed and flown 157 right into oblivion for all we know; or, Itasca may have sailed right over NR16020's shattered remains a couple of miles beneather her keel for that matter.

One thing is for certain: Itasca never found a trace of her despite Thompson's best and worthy efforts.

LTM -

[John Hart]

Jeff,

You are exactly right. I hope those who have read my COAs realize that any one of them could have been chosen. I have my beliefs and I use that word purposely not to get caught up in Marty and Malcolm's debate. I stated the COA I think they chose. I am more committed to it now having a better picture of the WX. If they were at 1000 feet under CU I think FN would have said "to Hell with this..." quicker than if in the clear.

That being said there is another possibility that I have not brought up yet as it isn't a COA and doesn't change the outcome from the "searching till run out of gas" theory as the airplane winds up in the big ocean never to be found.

That is the possibility that she got so focused on looking she flew right into the water. We call it distraction. A failure in proper task management. There are USAF time to impact tables derived for different airspeeds and descent rates precisely to show us how quick we can die from inattention at low alt. controlled flight into the ground is the USAF term and accounts for a significant number of accidents.

This theory has no more application to TIGHAR efforts than any of the alternative theories do as it places the airplane at an unfindable place given current technology and funding. Even if you could map the entire ocean floor in the S Pacific can you imagine how many twin engine airplanes are down there?  So, as Dr Ballard said, you look where the odds are good for finding. Otherwise you don't look at all.

JB

[john a delsing]

John Hart,
   A couple of ‘fun’ questions if you don’t mind:  If you had to land your f16 or f4 at Gardner (no bailing allowed) which would you choose and why? Where would you put it, lagoon, beach, reef, ocean? What else would you try to do with the plane, gear up, speed, etc? What kind of odds would you give your self of a walk away ( or swim away).  Don’t bother comparing these with the Electra and Amelia as we all know there is quite a difference.
    Thanks,  Johnny D.

[Jeff Victor Hayden]

Sometimes when you look at the rationale behind decisions it gives you a clearer picture of what was happening at the time. I can see the reasons for heading off to the NW of Howland...
It was the area of least visibility and most cloud plus...
'we are on the line 157-337' 'we are running on line North and South'
So the decision was made that the most likely area to search first would be North of the line 157-337, toward the area of least visibility.
A good decision by Itasca for sure and, the only logical one they could come up with given the evidence they had to go on, so no blame on their part for failing to find them.
There is of course the option that the 'we must be on you' and '200' miles out and '100' miles out plus, the estimates of how close they were based on signal strength could apply to any points of the compass surrounding Howland. Including the '157-337' '... South'
The decision to head North may in fact have taken the Itasca further away from them, it was a 50/50 decision which had North as the 'apparently' best choice of 'running North and South on the line 157-337.
In hindsight I know

[John Hart]

Johnny D,

That would be way off thread. Will take it to extraneous to discuss today vs 1937.

JB

[Jeff Victor Hayden]

I have a certain amount of confidence in the chances of Itasca finding the Electra and, of AE and FN in finding the Itasca, why?
1. Well Itasca headed toward the area most likely to contain the Electra
2. They were close, based on signal strength
3. Fred would have implemented a search pattern
4. SAR tables show a high probability of a plane at 1000 ft seeing a White ship+wake+smoke
5. Itasca new they were running North and South of a LOP
6. Itasca estimated the visibility in the NW sector where they headed to be 20 miles

Of course this all amounts to a hill of beans if the Electra wasn't NW of Howland

[John Hart]

I am with you on items 1-3. But I diverge on 4 and 6.

4.  At 1000' the look angle out to 10 NM is 1 degree. Under CU there is haze. The more acute your look angle through haze the less you see. A white ship, like a white cloud, looks grey to black on the down sun side. Shadows and light areas under those clouds further complicate the view. A wake is good just not sure how much she made. Small ship one screw electric drive. I'm sure if I looked her specs would be on here somewhere.

6.  I have mentioned vis ship to sky is different to aircraft to surface. Especially if one were looking W and the other looking E.

We have worked with Navy and CG ships. Hard to see even when radar, etc help you find them.

Big sky, big ocean theories apply here. A better discussion might be sound as aircraft engines would have been sound focused under clouds. But not sure what blowers etc on Itasca would be like. Probably loud making hearing A/C difficult. Perhaps one of you Navy types would know.

As I said earlier, just because they did not find each other does not mean they were not somewhere NW at some point.

JB

[Jeff Victor Hayden]

Good points on 4 and 6 John and your last sentence which brings me to my final point. They may very well have been in that area and not seen each other as you say.
1. Itasca didn't find any signs of a ditched/crashed plane NW of Howland despite heading there straight away
2. Electra wasn't NW of Howland, opposite direction of the running North and South on LOP?

Be interesting to find information on the wake put out by Itasca, there must be photos of Itasca under way somewhere. Even if it was only a couple of hundred yards it would help would it not?

[Martin X. Moleski, SJ]

A wake is good just not sure how much she made. Small ship one screw electric drive. I'm sure if I looked her specs would be on here somewhere.

Not that I know of.  There is a link to the Wikipedia article, which has lots of information.

[Anthony Allen Roach]

But not sure what blowers etc on Itasca would be like. Probably loud making hearing A/C difficult. Perhaps one of you Navy types would know.

That Air Force pilot sure knows a lot!  The forced draft blowers on the Duluth made an awful racket.  We had two boilers, and each boiler had one electric for light off, and two steam powered blowers once steam was up.  The steam blowers were turbines, powered by 600 auxiliary steam.  They were enclosed in sound proof booths on the upper level of the enginerooms.  If you were inside the booth, you had to wear double hearing protection (foam plugs plus mickey mouse headsets.)  I think an industrial survey rated the noise at around 120 dB.

Once you left the engineroom, the sound diminished until you were topside around the boat deck and the gun deck.  Those areas were close to the stacks, and the whine could be heard.  It was similar to the sound of a jet aircraft at idle.  When I read "Finding Amelia" I wondered if Chief Bellarts would have heard the sound of an approaching propeller aircraft if he was topside near the stack and any a/c sound was drowned out by those blowers.

[Jeff Victor Hayden]

When I read "Finding Amelia" I wondered if Chief Bellarts would have heard the sound of an approaching propeller aircraft if he was topside near the stack and any a/c sound was drowned out by those blowers.

Once again, a good point Anthony. I haven't seen this point mentioned in any of the reports I have read, so far. It sure is a good example of what can be achieved with a good debate. IMHO noise from Itasca would have been a factor in not hearing an approaching airplane.

[John Hart]

Just found the track chart for Itasca on here. Wow you got a lot of stuff. Will I ever see it all?

Itasca didn't go that far NNW before turning E then NNE and then return to Howland to await inbound PBY. Tells me the WX observation to N was probably good. CU 50 NM north but probably estimated to W. WX may have been closer than 50 W. I can't imagine them being more than 50 short. That's a big error in GS. If WX was 30-40 W I could believe they would be searching 157/337 headings at 1000 under CU and never see island or ship. If they had come E of the WX I would expect them to climb to extend visible range. That would also facilitate some nav work by FN. I suspect WX was closer to W and their search visible range was poor. You all know what I think they did after a while of doing that so I won't repeat it.

Long before I was an AF pilot I was an avid historian with both nautical and aviation interests. When in HS I wanted to go to USNA to fly off carriers to combine both passions. But flying was at the top so when I found out all USAFA grads can fly but lower percentage at USNA I went west young man. I know as much about naval and land warfare in WWII as I do aerial. Would never go down in one but know a lot about WWII subs.  But I'll stick to flying aspects here. Been pounded enough trying to talk navigatorese.

JB

[Bruce Thomas]

Just found the track chart for Itasca on here. Wow you got a lot of stuff. Will I ever see it all?

John, you probably already have discovered these index pages to the wealth of documentation. 

But, for any others who are still just Googling to find things on tighar.org, try either this index-by-document-type or this index-by-subject in order to keep up with John! 

[Jeff Victor Hayden]

Here are the actual Itasca deck logs. They contain a wealth of information regarding the conditions in the area at that time as the people who were there saw it.
Interesting to note that the people who were there at that time estimated the visibility better than 7, 8 and above, on all days...
7= Prominent objects not visible at 7 miles.
8= Prominent objects not visible at 20 miles.
9= Prominent objects visible above 20 miles.

http://tighar.org/Projects/Earhart/Archives/Documents/Logs/Itascadecklog.pdf